


No More After Me

by Catwithamauser



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with an Angsty Ending, F/M, Future Fic, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catwithamauser/pseuds/Catwithamauser
Summary: Frank's past comes back to haunt him when he's forced to face his future.  He winds up (almost) allowing it ruin everything.Or, Frank contributed to the deaths of two children.  Now he's having one of his own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy baby fic, which is probably what we all deserve rn given the show. In fact, its probably close to the bleakest fic I've written out of a whole series of bleak fics. But this is a fic that addresses some of what i think Frank might go through were he to have a kid (under less dramatic circumstances).
> 
> This one starts out fluffy and it all goes downhill from there...

The apartment is dark and silent when Frank gets home, though when he flicks on a light he can see Laurel’s keys resting on the counter in the kitchen, and her phone lying beside them. Either she’s been kidnapped, he decides, or she’s around somewhere, and he thinks she’d probably put up enough of a struggle that he’d be able to tell if she was abducted. Plus, Frank concludes, the odds of his girlfriend getting kidnapped, _twice_ , are probably pretty slim. Higher than for most of the population, he’ll admit to that, what with her father being her father and with the rolodex of pissed off clients she can’t keep out of jail, but well, Frank still doesn’t really think kidnapping is all that likely even so.

“Laurel?” he calls out through the empty apartment. “Babe?”

Hearing no response, he pads through the apartment towards the bedroom, figuring she’s got headphones in or something, or doing that thing she does that drives him crazy where she gets so focused on her task that it's like she vanishes completely from the world.

“Laurel?” he calls again, as he steps through into the bedroom. She's not inside, but he sees a light coming from behind the bathroom door, hears the shuffle of a body inside. He toes the door open gently. “Hey, Laurel?”

She looks up as he enters, but doesn't seem to have heard him. She's slumped on the floor of the small bathroom, back against the counter and when she lifts her eyes to him they're wide and wild, shot through with something like fear.

“What's going on?” he asks cautiously, sidling closer to her and dropping to his knees beside her.

“I,” she starts, voice cracked and high like she hasn't spoken for hours. And tentative, tripping over her words as though she’s uncertain of what to say, uncertain of whether words are appropriate at all. She's quiet, often, and watchful, but rarely cautious, not like this, not so completely uncertain. “I…here,” she holds something out to him, something small and he takes it automatically, not really processing the situation while he still tries to figure out what’s affecting Laurel so dramatically. He thinks he sees the silvery edges of tear tracks drying against her cheeks and certain he can see the way her lower lip has been bitten, chapped and raw.

But he turns his focus to the little object in his hand, smooth and plastic and white and oh… _oh wow_. He thinks he says it out loud, breathes it out so that its little more than a sigh. “Oh. _Oh wow_.”

He tears his eyes away from the little plastic stick, looks over at Laurel who’s staring at him with a mixture of anticipation and terror and hope and a thousand other things he can't begin to guess at.

“Are you serious?” he asks. And now it's Frank’s turn for his voice to crack, for his words to sound like they're trying to slip out past a lump the size of a bowling ball lodged in his throat. “Is this?”

She nods, bites her lip again and continues to watch him, wary and unblinking. “Yeah,” is all she says, like words have been stolen from both of them, like words don't exist to describe the situation they’re in.

“Wow,” he says again. “Holy shit, Laurel. Damn.”

She nods again, chuckles wetly as fresh tears begin to spill down her cheeks. “Are you? Are you ok with that?”

“With what?” he stutters out, because he needs to hear it out loud, needs to know this isn't some dream, some strange concoction his brain as thrown together out of want and hope and fear. “Say it.”

Laurel sucks in a long, shuddering breath, summons courage from somewhere inside herself, spine going straight and stiff as she holds his gaze. “Are you ok that I’m pregnant.”

It doesn't really sink in until she says those words, doesn't really have any meaning until he hears it out loud. The little plastic test, yeah sure, he knows what it is, but hearing her say it, somehow that makes it really sink in. And yeah, they’d been trying, sort of, or well, no, they definitely had been, because when Laurel went off the pill that's definitely what they were fucking doing, though they didn't really talk about it much after that, after the initial decision was made.

He didn't really think about it much after that, after they’d sat down and talked and yelled and cried and delayed a few months while Laurel figured some shit out, some deep and awful and painful and lingering shit that mostly had to do with her dad, and a fair bit with her mom and that he’s not entirely sure is fully healed yet, fully figured out. But then she came back to him, eyes wild and lip bitten raw and voice, hands shaking and said, yeah, let's go all in and stopped taking the little pills in the little clamshell case and Frank had basically forgotten about it for a few months because well, nothing had changed.

Except everything had changed. While he was busy not paying attention, everything had fucking changed.

And now, if the little plastic drug store test is to be believed, now there's a little thing growing inside his girlfriend that will someday maybe turn into a person, actual and real, and walking around on two legs and drinking coffee and listening to music and maybe someday creating another person of its own. And this little thing, this maybe-person that right now is probably only a little cluster of cells doubling and quadrupling at a rate that would make his head spin if Frank really thought about it, it's half him, half his strange mix of DNA, something that he created, he and Laurel created, and didn't even know he was doing it. And someday, someday soon, it's going to be a real, breathing creature with maybe his ears and maybe Laurel’s eyes and maybe his ma’s chin. But right now it's some tiny, barely detectable muddle of him and her and hope and desperation and something like insanity. Because what the hell were the two of them thinking that they could play God, literally; create a creature from nothingness, create a person and bring it into the universe and set it loose and see what magnificence it could create or destroy.

It's insanity, Frank thinks, and hubris and it's the most wonderful thing that maybe anyone’s ever said to him, the most wonderful thing that's maybe ever happened to him. Because, well, he wants a child more than anything, a child with Laurel that is everything good about both of them and maybe some of the bad too. He wants to see what that creature is or could be with a desperation that makes his throat tighten, his chest ache. He’d pushed it away after they decided to go forward, decided to see if they could have a kid, pushed the wanting deep down inside himself and focused on the mundane everyday, tricked himself into forgetting the Shrodinger's baby that had become a part of their lives.

He doesn't even think he had warning, any signal, no way to prepare himself for this, none of the telltale signs he's seen before in his sisters or on TV or anything, anything that would hint to him of this strange, ticking time bomb of a creation becoming inside of Laurel. Since she went off the pill she's been frustratingly irregular and hadn’t given him any indication she was suffering from nausea or tiredness or anything that would suggest this devastating bombshell of information nestled underneath her ribcage. Until now, until this explosion, this tidal wave, this sudden shifting of continental plates, this complete leveling of the entirety of what he thought he knew about life and his relationship with Laurel and himself. Literally nothing is different from how it was ten minutes ago, there is nothing that has changed about the world, and yet everything has, everything in the world has changed.

“Frank,” Laurel asks again, slowly and with even more caution, her words soft and hesitant and he can already see the beginnings of something thick and hard like shields coming down in front of her eyes, already preparing to close off and protect her heart from him. “Are you ok with that? That we’re gonna have a baby?”

Yes, he wants to tell her, god yes, of course he’s ok with a baby, with having a baby with Laurel, he was the one who really pushed it after all, who practically had to talk her into it. But he doesn't, because he can see the fear still lingering in her eyes, still see the caution underneath her stoic mask.

“Are _you_ ok with it?” he asks instead, because well, Laurel was tentative enough with this idea to begin with, the idea that they should try for a baby, and now that it's real, well, he expects she’s going to be freaking out, panicking, because what was once a hypothetical, a maybe someday, is much, much more real now, is something small now but growing larger, growing closer with every second. It's like a horror movie, he thinks, the baby is already inside the house, already inside Laurel. And if she’s not ready, not quite ready to embrace this new almost-life, this new thing they’ve formed out of nothingness and hope well, she’s probably petrified.

Laurel frowns slowly, tears flickering in her eyes but the shadow of caution remains. “That's not what I asked, Frank,” she tells him, voice low and cold. “I need to know if you're ok with this.”

“Of course,” he tells her. And he is, he wants this baby, he does, so badly, God does he want a child with her. He isn't sure how to explain it, this strange driving need to create something, something distinct and permanent with Laurel, this inexplicable desire to know if they will have a child with eyes like his or Laurel’s, if it will hate green beans as much as Laurel does, what its first word will be. He wants to know with a craving that’s like hunger, one he thinks may never be sated, wants to see Laurel as a mother, fierce and protective and quiet and lovely. “Of course I’m ok with having a baby. I wanted this, I wanted this so bad. I thought you wanted it too.”

“I do,” she whispers finally. “I really really think I do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “I, I wasn't sure at first, after I first took the test. I was fucking terrified. But that's ok, I think it's ok I’m scared. I think I _should_ be scared. But I want this so badly.”

“Me too,” he tells her. “I want a kid with you so bad.”

He doesn't know how can love something he only just realized existed, when he has seen no evidence of that existence other than two lines on a little plastic drug store test, but he does, desperately and deeply and hopelessly, like he’s falling and falling and falling, deeper until he’s drowned. There may be a child, a tiny little cluster of DNA that’s turning itself into a person, slowly, and yet faster than he thinks his brain can understand and he wants that child, wants to know that child, already loves that child more than words, more than sanity and sense.

“You sure?” she asks and Frank laughs because they’re both trying to reassure themselves that the other one wants this as much as they do, both doubting the other’s intentions, their desires.

He nods dumbly, thinks his face is going to split apart if he smiles any wider, because yeah, it's crazy but he wants it, wants it so badly it hurts and maybe, maybe these two tiny lines on this little plastic test are going to turn into a tiny little human that he gets the honor of crafting into a person, actual and whole. “Yeah, I’m…I’m…yeah, I’m sure. Totally freakin’ sure. It's freakin’ amazing. And I love you and you’re gonna be the best mom, you know that right?”

She’s crying again, and maybe he is too and she’s nodding and he loves her and loves this someday child so much he thinks he’ll burst. “You’re gonna be such a good dad,” she tells him. “The kind of dad our kid deserves.”

And Laurel smiles softly and slowly and Frank leans forward and kisses her and rests his forehead against hers and breathes her in deeply and wonders how he got so damn lucky.

* * *

Except it's not quite so easy as that.

He’s thrilled, at first, fucking over the moon. He really, truly is. And then, then the doubts creep in. Because he’s now responsible for a entire other tiny maybe-person, responsible for keeping them safe and happy and whole. Yeah, right now it's not a big deal, not when his almost-child is just a little blob creature in Laurel’s still flat stomach. But someday, someday it will be out in the world on its own and it’ll still be Frank’s job to make sure it's safe and happy and whole and can turn into its own functioning person. And that's too damn much. Because Frank doesn't deserve it, not that responsibility and not that happiness. He doesn't deserve that happiness at all, not with the things he's done, not with the monster that lurks under his skin.

And that doubt, that fear, it takes root in his chest and slowly, slowly it grows and reaches out and strangles everything else in him, kills the still fragile love and worship he has for his maybe-child, corrupts it until all he feels is terror and shame and loathing. And it freezes him, stops him dead in his tracks because he can't go forward and he can't go back. This almost-baby is here, even if it's not really, it's a real, almost-living thing and he and Laurel have created it and can’t unmake it, can't say to the universe that oh, sorry, they were just kidding, they take it back. No, the maybe-person that they’ve set into motion, into being, it's here now and all Frank can do is pray to a god he thinks he doesn't deserve, for mercy, for compassion, not for him, but for this tiny almost-creature, prays that it won't be damned because of who Frank is.

He doesn't think theres any conceivable universe in which he deserves to bring a child into the world, in which he's worthy of passing any part of himself on to another generation, of letting himself linger beyond death in the form of a child, another human. He's taken life, taken _lives_ , of those living and those almost-living, been responsible for the deaths or almost-deaths or non-life of creatures identical to the one he now loves more than his own breath, more than his own life, the tiny possible-creature that hugs tightly somewhere inside Laurel. What right does he have to have a child of his own when its his fault Annalise never got to have her son, never got to see him take a breath or hold him or see his first steps or know his voice.

What right does he have to a child, to bring life into the world when all he's good for is taking it, snuffing it out before it even really is life at all, when he wrapped his hands around Lila Stangard's throat and took her life and the life of her nearly-child, took away any chance it had of happiness or sadness or anything, anything at all.

He deserves nothing, has no right to be given a child when he's taken one away, destroyed its potential existence, its maybe-life, because someone told him it was his job. He doesn’t deserve a child after he's killed one, murdered one. No, two.

Murdered two maybe-children, wanted and cherished and loved.

And his own nearly-child, this tiny clump of cells and space dust and fierce fierce love, of wanting, that grows larger with every moment, more real, well, Frank thinks he cannot possibly let himself love this creature, this wondrous creation, because if there's any sense of right, of justice, of truth in the universe, he will not be allowed to have this maybe-child, he will have it torn from his arms, from his heart because he is a monster and he deserves only punishment for what he's done.

He doesn't know how he was so dumb, so naïve to not know this before, before he helped to create this tiny almost-life, but he had wanted this possible-child, this creature that was him and Laurel and yet neither of them. He had wanted it so badly it made his chest ache and he’d ignored all the reasons why he should have listened to that ache, to that pain and recognized it for what it was, something he couldn’t, shouldn’t allow himself to have. It was a warning his brain was giving the rest of him, that this thing, this desire he had to create something strange and new and wholly its own with Laurel out of their love and their desire and their joint madness, well, it was disaster, fully only disaster, doomed to failure from the start.

It's like a corruption, the slow chokehold of his fears. It taints everything in his life, makes him draw away from Laurel because he can't destroy her happiness too; can't ruin the strange, distant smile he catches on her face, like she’s listening to far off music but that he knows comes from inside her, can't snap the tiny, unshakeable bond she has already with this thing that is part and not part of her.

He knows she notices, knows she can sense Frank drawing back, drawing into himself and away from her, from _them_. But he can't help himself, it's the only way, the only way to keep them safe from the creature he is. He catches her crying sometimes, so late at night that it's morning, or when she steps into the apartment when she thinks he’s still at work. It tears at him, crushes him, but he can't do anything else. He doesn't know what to do. If it will save his possible-child from the evil that lurks inside Frank, from the unworthiness, even if it hurts Laurel, it's for the best he knows, even if it hurts them, even if it kills him.

He gets home later and later, talks less and less, though he tries not to let it show, tries to smile when he should and nod when he should and be as happy as he was in those first naïve days before it dawned on him just what having this child would mean.

And one day he gets home and Laurel’s standing in the doorway when he enters and her eyes are like flashing coals, her mouth set in a grim, furious line, tears spilling from her lashes, and he knows he’s done it, he knows he’s got his victory, as hollow as it is, because he’s managed to save her, save his eventual-child from the thing that he is.

“It was today, Frank,” is all she says as he brushes past her, into the kitchen, shrugging off his jacket. She turns, watches him move through the apartment, hugging her elbows close to her body, hugging her arms over her stomach like she’s already trying to shield this someday-child from pain and fear and sadness. 

You can't, he wants to tell her, you can't protect this pseudo-person, and you’re lying if you think otherwise. Life is pain and fear and sadness, it may not be what their eventual-child deserves, but it's what this creature will get because Frank is damned and any child of his will be damned as well.

He knows what she’s talking about, but he forces his face to remain impassive, stony, cold, forces himself to pretend he doesn't know, doesn't care. “What?”

“The ultrasound,” she says, and he expected her voice to be angry, accusing, but instead it's just soft and sad and weary, like she’s already given up on him. “The appointment was today. And you missed it.”

Frank shrugs, turns away so he can hang up his coat so she can't see the tightness working through his jaw, the jump in his cheek as he tamps down the urge to cry. “I was busy with work,” he tells her, keeps his voice cold.

“Ok,” Laurel sighs. “Ok, Frank,” is all she says, and he thinks she sees her arms tighten even further across her chest, across the space where their nearly-child now grows. 

“I forgot,” he snaps, watching as she steps back, shocked, eyes wide because he doesn't think he’s ever been so harsh, so cruel towards her, never in the entirety of their relationship. He doesn't know who he is anymore, doesn't recognize this vicious snarling creature, this thing ruled only by fear. “I can't keep every unimportant thing in my head.”

She blinks at him for long, long moments and he almost wishes she’d begin to cry again because at least then he could hate himself, allow the hate, the loathing to mean something. Instead, her arms tighten even further across the span of her body, across their tiny potential child. “Whatever’s going on with you, Frank,” she tells him, her voice flat and cold and distant. “You need to figure it out. Talk to me, please. Because I’m not going to wait around for you to wake up and realize you’re going to have a child whether you want it or not.”

“I…,” he stutters out, but can't get any further, can't go on. He doesn't deserve to defend himself. Not from her, not from this.  
Laurel nods stiffly. “That's what I thought. Look, I get that this is all fucking terrifying but you can't just decide you don't want a child anymore. It's _here_.”

“It's not,” he gasps out, because if that's true than its already too late and Frank’s already ruined his child, already damned it. “It's not _anything_.”

Laurel flinches, looks like she’s been struck, her eyes suddenly wide, jaw suddenly tight and hard like it could cut glass. “It's real. It's a child, Frank, your child. And you can walk away and you can pretend, but that doesn't change a thing. You're going to be a father.”

“And maybe I shouldn't be.”

“Maybe you shouldn't,” she snaps, finally allowing the anger to bubble up and out of her. “You’re certainly not acting like one. But congratulations, Frank, you’re a dad anyway. Deal with it.”

She sighs again, weary, defeated and he sees all the anger drain out of her, sees again the tears that glisten in the corners of her eyes before she dashes them away, moves like a ghost to the bedroom, the door shutting softly behind her.

He wants to go to her, wants to explain, wants to tell her he’s sorry, he doesn't mean it, that it's for the best, but he doesn't. He doesn't deserve the opportunity to explain himself, to try and gain absolution for the terrible things he's done, the terrible things he’s continuing to do. He just sighs himself, toes off his shoes and goes to grab a beer from the fridge. 

It's then that he sees it, the little fuzzy black and white printout, stuck to the fridge with a magnet from their local Chinese place. All the breath goes out of him at once, all the air leaving the world. And all his doubts and fears and racing, panicked thoughts, they all feel like they can't be pushed to the back of his mind anymore, they come racing forwards, demanding his attention, demanding his compliance. Except there’s something more, something that drowns out even his racing terror, his guilt and loathing.

He stares at the photo, at the fuzzy blob of his maybe-child he can barely make out from the fuzzy ultrasound photo. He can’t look away, can’t tear his eyes away from the image stuck to the fridge. It looks far from human, nothing like a baby, but it's his, his and Laurel’s and they’ve created this tiny little something. And he doesn't want to, God he doesn't want to because he doesn't deserve it, but he loves this eventual child, this someday baby that could one day call him dad and wake him up at 4:30 in the morning and who he could teach to ride a bike, teach to read and to love bad action movies and to cook the perfect lasagna, who could look to him for math homework and dating advice and how to get back in Laurel’s good graces; he loves this potential son or daughter so violently he thinks he can never love anything more, so fiercely his hands start to shake and he can't control the urge to reach out, press his hands against the printout, run his fingers against the curve of this little muddled bundle of cells that is his child.

He feels tears running down his cheeks, hot and fast, feels sobs wracking his body, sending shudders through his limbs because he loves this tiny, uncertain thing more than he loves anything else in the world, save Laurel and he doesn't deserve it, doesn't deserve this strange miracle he’s been given, and more than that, he will corrupt, will ruin, will damn any child of his before it's even drawn breath.

He can’t turn away, can't turn his eyes from it, doesn't even think he could move if he tried. He must stand like that for hours, for days just staring at the blurry grayscale image of the bean shaped tadpole creature that will be his child.

He can't do this, he thinks, can't fucking do this anymore, try to pretend that he doesn't want this child, walk away from this thing, growing like a weed inside Laurel, inside his own heart. He wants it so badly, but the wanting, the craving, it means nothing next to the certainty that if there is a god, he will do everything in his power to punish Frank for the lives he took, will take this tiny almost-baby, destroy it or corrupt it or figure out some way to torture Frank for the evil in his bones.

But he isn't strong enough to walk away from Laurel, from his someday-child, doesn't have the guts to do what needs to be done. So instead he chooses to remain in stasis, to do nothing until a decision is forced on him. He gives one last long look at the printout, tries to burn it into his brain and tears himself from it, pads into the bedroom, shucks his clothes and lays down next to Laurel. He knows she’s not asleep, can hear it in the uneven hitch of her breath, but she’s turned away from him and he knows enough not to try and touch her.

Frank tries to ignore the muffled sounds of her tears, tries not to listen as she works to still her breathing, as the tension in her body rolls off her limbs in waves. And he tries to ignore how doing the right thing feels nothing like it.

The next day he gets home after dark to a note that's replaced the ultrasound printout stuck to the fridge.

_I’m staying with Michaela for a while. Don't call until you’re certain_. 

She doesn't take all her stuff, mostly clothes and some personal items, doesn't take the toaster oven or the blender that came with her when she moved in with him, doesn't take her books or her framed degree, but she takes the quilt her grandmother made for her, takes the solitary picture of her oldest brother she kept tucked away in her bedside table. It's things like that that give Frank a sliver of hope that she might be back, someday, that there might be a chance, things like that that convince him he’s lost her forever. 

He’s fine the first few days, functioning, then spends the weekend first drunk and then violently hungover. He spends Monday and Tuesday like that too, calling in and lying to Annalise that he’s got some stomach thing. It takes until Wednesday for him to realize that there’s no amount of alcohol in the world that's going to let him forget about Laurel, about his could be-child, no amount of alcohol that's going to fill the aching in his chest for what he’s losing. For what he’s already lost.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all this fic is just gonna pretend s3 Frank DNE, ok, because s3 Frank makes no damn sense. Sound good?

That Sunday he goes to his folks’ for dinner, can't put them off again. Just after Laurel left he’d called off, lied and said she wasn’t feeling well, that they’d decided to stay in. But he can't do it two weeks in a row, knows he can’t put off his ma, knows she won't buy an excuse a second time. He hasn't missed more than two weeks of Sunday dinners since he was maybe twenty two and broke three bones in his leg. Even then his Ma had guilted him for it. So he knows he can't do it now, has to bite the bullet and go.

So he shows up alone, for the first time since he and Laurel became he and Laurel, in _years_. He knows he’s gonna get questions, is bracing himself for them, and yet, when he does show up, alone and morose and somewhere between drunk and hungover, no one asks him anything, just lets him slip into the house and go straight to his dad’s ever present bottle of bourbon. Even his Ma leaves him alone, just gives him a long, searching look before telling him to come help her with the salad. And then she lets it go when Frank makes no move to follow her into the kitchen.

His siblings, all nosy as hell at the best of times, give him a wide berth too, as though they can sense the grief, the terror in him, as though they can see it in his bones, smell it in the air. No one asks him any of the usual questions, no one even asks how Laurel is, just leaves him to scowl and glower in the corner and throw back drink after drink. Even his nieces and nephews avoid him instead of crowding him, draping their small, warm bodies over his, as though they too know Frank’s anxieties about his own child.

He hates it, _hates it_ , hates the change from his normal Sunday routine, his mom peppering them both with questions as they help her in the kitchen, Laurel tossing cherry tomatoes at his oldest nephew who just discovered his preternatural skill at catching them in his mouth, his sister and her husband taking their frequent good-natured arguments from the kitchen to the living room to the porch. He misses it, misses it all, because while everything is the same, nothing is the same, it's all hollow and meaningless without Laurel.

But he does his best, goes through the motions, even though his mom’s ziti tastes like ashes, even though the normally vibrant, raucous conversation is shrieking and grating to his ears, even though he wants none of it if he doesn't have Laurel.

It's only after dinner, as he instinctively rises to help his mom with the dishes that his dad stops him, arm heavy against Frank’s wrist. “Not tonight Frankie,” his dad tells him, voice low and heavy. “I need some air. Wheel me out, wouldja.”

“Sure dad,” Frank tells him, something sinking in his chest, something tight and helpless. He sees the long look his parents exchange, the silent conversation they have over his head, knows that much as he’s tried, badly, to play things off, his parents have bought none of his lies, none of his efforts at normalcy. He pushes his dad out onto the porch in the back, wondering if his old man’ll let him flee back inside, will let him go without pressing on the gaping wound in Frank’s chest. He kicks the brakes on his dad’s wheelchair, backs up and tries to slip inside.

“Frankie,” his dad calls out before Frank gets more than two steps. “Sit and talk with me a minute.”

“Sure dad,” Frank repeats, nausea rising in his chest because he can't talk about it, can't talk about why Laurel is missing from his life, why she’s no longer his.

“Where’s my girl?” he asks without preamble. “I missed her last week too.”

“Not me?” Frank asks sarcastically, trying to throw his dad off the trail.

“Nah, Frankie,” his dad tells him, though his voice is laced with affection and he reaches back, pats Frank’s hand. “Not you. But really, where’s my girl?”

“Couldn't come tonight,” Frank says vaguely, noticing his dad’s skeptical look, the scoff he lets out under his breath.

“Yeah?” his dad asks, casually. “Everything alright with you two?”

“Fine dad,” Frank says, a warning in his voice.

“You fucked up didn't you?” he’s asked, his dad craning his neck around, giving him a shrewd look, frowning deeply.

Frank sighs. “Yeah, I did.” He can't lie to his dad, has never been able to lie to him, doesn't even make the attempt any longer because his dad always sees through it, has a way of tearing through whatever bullshit Frank tries to erect and getting straight to the heart of the matter.

“How bad?” his dad presses.

“Bad.”

“You knocked her up, didn't you?” his dad asks after a long moment.

Frank sighs heavily again, sinks into the plastic deck chair beside his father. “Yeah.”

“And now you're freaking out,” his dad states, nothing resembling a question in his words. He’s scowling deeply at Frank, scrubbing and hand across his face in a gesture Frank recognizes all too well in himself. He wonders if his child too will inherit this gesture, this sign of frustration and exhaustion, wonders if he’ll ever have the chance to know or if it will always remain a mystery to him, something he wonders about in his darkest, most self-loathing moments.

“I am,” Frank admits. “I’m freaking out and I fucked up and now she’s left me.”

“Can you fix it?” his dad asks gruffly, staring out across the yard, though Frank sees his jaw tighten in something like anger, like disappointment, fingers tightening over the armrests of his wheelchair.

“I dunno. I fucked up pretty bad.”

“Then you better unfuck it,” his dad instructs.

Frank scoffs, immediately feels bad because his dad is trying to help in his own way, trying to set Frank on the right path. “It's not really that easy dad.”

“Course it is,” his dad tells him. “That girl’s the best thing that ever happened to you. Whatever else you do, you gotta set that right.”

“I can't,” Frank says. “Not if she doesn't want it too.”

“Why wouldn't she want that?” the older man asks, giving Frank a sidelong glance, taking a long sip of the everpresent tumbler of whiskey in his hands.

“Cause I fucked up.”

“What, you don't want the kid?” his dad asks with a scoff “Don't matter if you want this kid or not, you gotta make it right with her. You gotta step up and be a man.”

“I want the kid,” Frank blurts out, voice cracking, voice like a sob.

“Then what the fucks the problem?”

“I,” Frank begins, swallows his words down, throat bobbing convulsively as he feels tears pricking at the back of his eyes. “I don't know if I can.”

“Course you don't,” he’s told, as his dad gives him a little mocking laugh. “Course you're scared shitless, course you're freaking out. That's part of being a goddamn father Frank. You don't know if you can be one before you are, before you see your kid.”

Frank says nothing, he can't, just swallows thickly again, ties to dislodge the hard lump of something like grief, like terror rising in his blood.

“You think you're the first man who freaked out about having a kid, being responsible for someone else’s life?” his dad snorts, takes a long swig of his drink. He offers Frank his glass, waits until Frank takes a long sip before continuing. “Before your brother was born I was convinced I was gonna fuck him up, convinced he’d be better off without me. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I really wanted to have a kid. When I knocked your Ma up I was a half-talented shop assistant with no hope of making mechanic, I wasn't fit to be anyone’s dad.”

“But you’re a good man dad,” Frank points out. “You're a good man and you stepped up and made it work. You didn't have to worry about fucking Bobby up.”

“Course I worried about fucking Bobby up,” his dad tells him, fixing him with a sharp look and for a long, startling moment, Frank finds himself thinking he’s disappointed his father somehow, somehow let his father down, failed to live up to the expectations his iron, unwavering father has set for him. When Frank was a child his father never let him see weakness, never let him or his siblings see any worries he may have had, about money, about work, about the many things he must've been concerned about. Hell, even as Frank grew to be an adult, his dad never let himself appear weak to his children, even after the accident landed him in a wheelchair, was still as full of silent, unwavering strength, still as full of clenched jawed dogged determination. Frank thinks this may be the first time his father’s even admitted worry, admitted anything less than rigid confidence in being able to solve every problem, work out every pitfall to his advantage, indicated that things have ever not worked out perfectly for him. “Course I did. Still worry about Bobby, about all you kids. You little shits still keep me up at night. But I did my best anyway. I did what I could and I tried to make you into good people.”

“You did pretty good dad,” Frank assures him, glancing away because he thinks if he doesn't he’ll crack, he’ll crumble. He’s had such a good dad, such a steady, assured dad, who may not have been perfect but he was always there, always interested, always looking out for his kids. How’s Frank supposed to live up to that, he thinks, how’s he supposed to be that for his own child when he’s a monster, a twisted corrupted thing.

“Damn right I did,” his dad agrees. “Even if that was mostly your Ma. Doesn’t mean I wasn't freaked out, doesn't mean I didn't stay up nights worrying about you kids. Every damn time your Ma told me there was gonna be another one of you, I panicked, wondered if I’d finally run outta luck and fuck you up.”

“And how’d you get past that?” Frank asks, almost desperately. His hands are clasped together as though in prayer and he thinks, for a long moment that maybe that's what he's doing, maybe that's what he needs. 

When he was a kid, his dad was his hero, he was convinced the man could do no wrong. He was strong and he was silent and he always supported his kids, whatever they wanted to do, may not have always been able to show up to Frank’s baseball games, but was always proud to hear later when Frank got a homer, always made sure they had everything they needed. As Frank got older some of that worship lessened as he came to understand what it was to be a man, but he still believed, still believes his dad’s a good man, a great father. He’s still strong, still silent, still unwavering in his convictions, still steady in his beliefs. Or so Frank thought. 

His dad shrugs. “I didn't. It never gets easier, I never worry any less about fucking you kids up. But I do the best I can, did the best I can. And your Ma tells me you’d all be worse off without me, so I gotta believe that.”

Frank chuckles darkly. “Probably true.”

“So what's the problem Frankie?” his dad asks, eyeing him out of the corner of his eye, a shrewd, studious look as he takes another long sip of his drink. 

“Because I can't just sit back and hope everything's gonna be ok. Because I don't know it will.”

“Course you don't,” the older man tells him. “You never will. But once you've got your kid, all that won't matter so much anymore.”

“I don't know that's gonna be enough,” Frank confesses.

“Nah,” his dad agrees. “Didn't think it would. You were always a worrier Frankie. Always knew that’d get you into trouble someday. Look, you can't let that worry eat you alive, you just gotta give into it. You know how when you were little and you were always getting into fights?”

Frank nods.

“And how I told you how sometimes there wasn't nothing you could do to avoid getting hit?”

Frank nods again.

“Having a kid’s just like that. Sometimes you just gotta take the punch, just gotta accept you're getting hit and move on, do the best you can with the damage that's been done.”

“Having a kids like getting socked in the jaw?” he asks incredulously.

His dad nods. “Sometimes. And you just gotta roll with whatever you’ve been given.”

“I don't know if I can,” he admits.

Frank’s dad shrugs casually, takes another long sip of bourbon. “Doesn’t matter if you can. You gotta, Frankie. You can either accept it or fight it, but one way or another it's gonna happen if you’re gonna be a dad. And you're gonna be a dad, I raised you better than to walk away from your kid.”

“I’m trying dad, I really am.”

His dad scoffs. “Don't give me excuses, and don't tell me about it. Just go and do it.”

He nods, tries not to frown, tries to accept his dad’s words as truth. “Ok.”

“So,” his dad asks, giving Frank a sidelong glance. “I tell you what you needed to hear?”

Frank scrubs a hand across his face, stops himself as he realizes he’s echoing his father’s own gestures. “I dunno. Maybe.”

“Look,” his dad tells him. “You just gotta accept that you're gonna be terrified for the rest of your life. Nothing you can do about it. But the same’s true for you as it was for me. Your kid’ll be worse off without you. And you’ll be worse off without your kid, without Laurel.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he’s assured and his father’s frown is weighty, still reeking of something like disappointment. “She’s good for you, Frankie. She loves you, God help her. Don't you dare hurt her by being a coward.”

“I’m,” he starts, stops. “I’m trying not to. I really am.”

“Don't try,” his dad tells him sharply, sounding almost angry. “Just be the man I raised you to be. Be the man your kid can be proud of.”

Frank sighs, tries not to sob. His dad’s trying, he really is and Frank knows it, can feel it in the weightiness of his words, in the pauses he takes before he speaks. But it's not that easy, God, it's never been that easy, because Frank’s not just a man trying to figure out how to support a family, how to be there for his kid. He’s trying to keep the creeping rot of his past evils from his child, shield his child from his sins. It's not that easy, he wants to tell his dad, but he can't, can never confess the terrible things he’s done; that's another of the terrible burdens he’s forced to bear. His dad can never know the creature Frank’s turned into, the bad man he’s become, he can't do that to his dad, can't let him down, disappoint him like that. His dad is so proud of him, of the rest of his siblings, of the people they've become. He thinks it's his dad’s greatest achievement; the thing he’s proudest of. And Frank can't ruin that, can't let him know the horrible things he’s done.

So his dad can't help him, can't give him the guidance Frank craves, that he needs if he’s ever going to be able to be a father to his maybe-child, ever going to become anything more than a stranger, a shadow to this creature that shares his blood. He wants to be a father, a real father, wants to be the kind of father his own dad was, wants his kid to think he’s amazing, can do no wrong rather than a pathetic deadbeat or a dangerous, bad man, or worse yet, to not think of him at all. But he’s not sure he can be anything more, not sure he can be a father to this someday child without something horrible happening, without ensuring his almost child’s doom, putting him at risk, condemning him to the terrible fate Frank’s evil deeds have brought about.

He swallows down another sob, the thick choking lump of something sharp and acrid in his throat, goes to stand because he can't be around his father anymore, can't lie to him anymore, can't think about what he’s going to be losing with his child, what his child will be losing if Frank cannot let himself be a father, let himself know his child. The maybe child will miss Frank as a father, yes, but he’ll miss this too, miss having a grandfather who loves old movies and the Eagles and who can figure out how to fix anything, from sinks to treehouses, and aunts and uncles and cousins and never know what a wonderful cook Frank's Ma is, the wicked streak of her humor. The loss is deep and blinding and leaves him reeling, the extent of what he will be losing, what his child will be losing. And it's all his fault.

“I love you,” his dad tells him as Frank rises to stand, go back inside, go home, really, retreat and drink himself until he can forget Laurel, forget his maybe child. “And you're a good man, Frankie. But hear me on this, son, if you fuck up what you have, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

“I know,” Frank says as he goes. “I know it's my fault.”

“Good,” his old man tells him, nodding as though Frank’s finally said something that makes sense. “So fix it. I’m not gonna choose between you and Laurel, between you and your kid. So you better fix it before I have to.”

“I’m not gonna make you choose dad,” Frank assures him. “I wouldn't do that, not to you, not to Laurel.”

“Good,” he says again but there's a flintiness in his eyes, a clench to his jaw that gives Frank pause, that makes him think that his father means it, that he's not going to allow Frank to split his affections, to split the people that his father considers family apart. “Because I won't. You're my boy Frankie, my son. But she’s my daughter, blood or not and you don't turn your back on family, not ever. Don't ask me to.”

“Never,” he vows. “She needs you dad, you an ma, she needs you to be her family.. She’s had no one for so long and I'd never ask you to abandon her, no matter what happens with me an her. I’d never ask you not to know your grandkid.”

His dad nods, sighs. “Fix it Frankie,” he tells him. “Please. You're miserable without her and I know she’s miserable without you. And you’re gonna be miserable without your kid. So fix it, ok? Please.”

Frank slips inside then, tries to blink back the tears that spring suddenly to his eyes, to the feeling of nausea and guilt and fear that churn in his gut. Its not just his life, Laurel’s life, his child’s life he’s fucking up, Frank realizes, but his decisions, his guilt, his sins are ruining the lives of everyone he loves, everyone who loves him, loves Laurel. God, he thinks, stomach sinking, if he doesn't fix things, figure out a way to fix things, to accept his past, to embrace his future with his maybe child, it’ll shatter his family, his family who so completely embraced Laurel, who took her in and gave her the family she had been seeking with a desperation that always startles him, makes his chest tighten with love, with loss. And he can't, he won't take that away from her, from them, won't be so selfish as to demand that of her. If it comes to it, Frank thinks, he will walk away, will leave, will surrender their family to Laurel, to his child. It's a sacrifice he’s more than willing to make, to make up for all the hurts he’s caused, all the wrongs he’s done.

He goes to slip out the door but his Ma catches him as the door sticks open.

“Frankie?” she calls, ducking her head out of the kitchen to skewer him with a long, disappointed look. “Don't go yet. I need to give you leftovers. Take em back to Laurel.”

“Ma,” he begins, but she’s gone again, back into the kitchen. He follows dutifully, as he knows she intended. “Ma, she’s sick right now, she doesn't need lasagna.”

She turns, gives him that same hard look. “Course she does,” she tells him. “Comfort food, Frankie. She loves my lasagna.”

“Ma,” he tries again, swallows hard because he doesn't want to lie to her. “Laurel an me are…Laurel an me’re on a break right now.”

“Oh,” she sighs deeply, face falling until he’s afraid she’s going to cry. She blinks hard. “Oh, Frankie, oh baby.”

He chokes back a sob he didn't know was coming as she approaches him, draws his body to her like he’s still a small child, one hand going to his temple, stroking against his hair, his cheek.

“Oh Frankie,” she breathes again. “What happened? What did you do?”

“Something stupid,” is all he can get out. “Something real bad.”

“I know that,” she tells him, voice suddenly sharp, though she still keeps her hand against his back, against his cheek. “I know it was bad; she left you. But why?”

He tries to shrug, just sobs in her chest again. “Because I’m an idiot and a coward and I fucked up and now she's gone.”

“Fix it,” she tells him, voice soft as she pulls back, fixes him with a look. “Go grovel and apologize and get her back.”

“I…”

“What's the problem?” she asks him. “You love her and she loves you, so fix it.”

“I don't think I can,” he confesses. “I don't know if I should, if I deserve to.”

“Frankie,” she tells him sharply, her eyes holding his, refusing to turn away. “You're my son, and I love you and I'd do anything for you. You know that. But you need to fix this.”

“I want to, ma, I do. But I’m not sure I can.”

“She loves you,” his mom tells him with a shrug, as though it's that easy, that perfectly easy. “And you love her. What could be more simple?”

“Anything,” he mutters despondently. “Everything.”

His mom sighs. “Then maybe you and her weren't meant to be you and her.”

“I really really hope that's not true Ma,” he confesses, feels the tight lump is his throat swell until he can barely breathe for it.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I hope it's not Frank, but maybe you gotta start thinking about what you're gonna do if it is.”

“It's not,” he insists sharply, more vehemence than he intended in his words. It can't be. He loves Laurel, loves her more than life itself, loves him more than sense or sanity, loves his child beyond reason. And that can't be for nothing, that can't _mean_ nothing. They can't feel the things they feel and not be together forever.

“Ok,” his mom nods, mouth pressed tight. “Ok. Then prove it Frankie. Prove you're supposed to be with her.”

* * *

 

He dreams, dreams of her, dreams of his almost child. Every night he dreams of her. 

He gets a phone call, hears Sam’s voice over the line, ordering Frank to take care of things, reminding Frank that he owes him. And Frank, ever dutiful, ever the perfect lap dog, Frank obeys, can’t even hope to resist the command Sam gives him.  
Frank climbs the stairs to Laurel’s old apartment, the one she had her 1L year with the creaky stairs and the bay window, ice in his veins, terror in his heart and finds Laurel asleep, curled tight in her bed, grandmother’s quilt thrown across her shoulders and her hair, soft and dark, fanning across the pillow.

He creeps into her room, pads softly across the floor until he reaches the bed. Frank sinks his knees onto the bed, sinks into the mattress, leans over Laurel and wishes, wishes desperately he could just sink down beside her, curl his body around hers, breathe in the scent of her, fresh and familiar, press his lips against her neck. 

But instead, instead, Frank reaches out, wraps his fingers around her throat, tightens them. Her eyes spring open, take in his face, his jaw tight with tension, tight with grief. She stares, stares, doesn’t even struggle just stares up at him as Frank’s fingers dig into her neck, strangle the air from her lungs. He wants to loosen his fingers, wants to let her go, let her breathe, let her live, but he can’t, he won’t, his fingers won’t obey the commands of his mind. He just keeps tightening, until Laurel’s eyes grow wide, wide and blue and terrified, until they finally close. He feels the press of her heartbeat against his fingers, thrumming fast with fear and then slower, slower until it fades to nothing, until she fades to nothing, as tears run down his cheeks, as he sobs his apologies again and again, until it’s the only sound in the room, the only sound in the world.

He dreams too of a car crash, of the screech of metal and the crunch of glass and Laurel’s high shattering scream. He dreams of a woman with a tight smile and a suitcase of money and the promise of a few minutes of work, slipping a small device where it won’t found. He dreams of Laurel, belly swollen with his child, her eyes, her smile tired but so, so happy, so full of joy, practically shining with it, glowing with it. He dreams of her hand across the span of her stomach, across the swell of their child, dreams of the answering kick from within Laurel’s body, the answering call of his child, reaching out to her.

He wants to crush the tracker beneath his heel, wants to take the money and run, fling the whole thing into Lake Erie. He wants to tell the woman no, but finds his voice answering yes, finds himself nodding, taking the tracker in his hand, finds him slipping it against her car. There is nothing he can do to resist, like his actions have been programmed, like free will has been taken from him. He wants to warn Laurel, scream until his voice is raw and ragged not to get in the car, not to get on the road, wants to scream until there's nothing left of him. But he can’t or she doesn’t hear him, or doesn’t care. It makes no difference. He knows what’s coming and nothing he does, no warning he attempts will change things.

And he dreams of that shattering, shattering with the crunch of glass and crumpling steel, watches her body shatter, watches in slow motion as the steel of another vehicle rips through her car, her temple snapping against the windshield, cracking against it as her eyes close as her body goes limp, sees blood dripping from her head, dripping from her lips, dripping from between her legs as his child’s life slips away, as Laurel’s life slips away.

He dreams of a terrible pain ripping through her body, of sheets slick with blood, dripping from her fingers, staining her legs as Laurel begs him with wild, desperate eyes, hands pressed desperately over her stomach, begs him to do something, do something, save their child. And Frank dreams of futility, of being able to move this time, being able to go to her, let Laurel wrap her arms around his body, clutch at his back or grasp his hand in her own as the pain comes again, dreams of his hand slipping against her face, against her hair, telling her he’s sorry, he’s sorry, wishing with everything inside him there was something, anything he could do. Frank dreams of the ability to move, dreams of it not mattering at all, dreams of his child slipping from the world, slipping from the shelter of Laurel’s body before its time, dreams of its life slipping through his fingers like sand, powerless to do anything to break the curse he placed on his tiny almost child the moment of its creation.

He dreams of a thousand other deaths, a thousand other horrible, painful fates for Laurel, for his someday child. Dreams them, a thousand every night, wakes with screams dying on his tongue, with tears pouring down his cheeks, with terror, grief, guilt surging through his bones.

He dreams of SIDS and choking and cancer and drowning and falls and guns and fire, dreams of a tiny dark haired boy with a crooked smile and blood staining his teeth, dreams of a girl with wide blue eyes and pale skin and a broken body, dreams of a thousand ways death and pain can come for his child, all the ways he will lead evil to his child’s door, all the ways he’s already invited it in.

He knows he can’t stop it, can’t stop the terrible things from coming, from death and pain and fear from taking his child, taking Laurel, knows he is powerless. He knows too, that it will be his fault, whatever happens, it will be because of him, because of the evil, the corruption that lurks in his bones. He’s passed that corruption onto his child, passed it on the same as he would pass on his eyes, or his smile, the shape of his nose. His child will inherit the terrible things that lurk in his heart and it will damn that child. It already has. He doesn’t know what it will take, but he can’t have that happen, knows he must prevent it, knows already that he can’t. In his dreams he can do nothing to change his child’s fate, nothing to save his almost child, in his dreams he is a monster, but he must be more in reality, must be different, he must resist the lure of the darkness inside him, must do anything, everything he can do protect his child, to try and keep it safe. He doesn’t think he can live otherwise, doesn’t think he wants to. 

He doesn’t know how, doesn’t think its even possible, is almost certain its not. All he knows is that he must return to them, to Laurel, to his almost child, growing closer with every second. He must do what he can’t do in his dreams, must protect them and keep them safe and whole, must protect them from himself, from the things he has passed on, like a disease, to his tiny maybe child. He has to at least try. He has no other choice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured I should get this out before tonight's ep sends me into another rage/sadness spiral...  
> Also, this chap is what the frank/bonnie brotp should be all about, lol

The next week is torture to get through, though not as hard as the one that preceded it. Being without Laurel doesn't get any easier, the empty space in his chest that opened up when she left is still there, raw and bleeding and unable to heal. But refusing to let himself wallow in alcohol and inaction, well, that makes it easier to function. And at least now he has a plan, absurd as it may be, as futile as he suspects it is. It's something at least.

He wants to ask Bonnie about her, or to text Michaela and see how she’s doing, whether she misses him as much as he misses her, craves her.

He doesn’t of course, knows just how disastrous reaching out will be now, before he has an answer for her. _Don't call until you're certain._ He's not certain, far from it, the only thing he’s certain about is his total and utter uncertainty.

He loves her, that much is clear to him, is probably the truest thing in his life. He loves their almost-child, he knows that too.

And he knows the slow rush of terror he feels anytime he tries to imagine himself as a father, when he tries to imagine this tiny almost-life in his and the echoing grief when he imagines his life without this nearly-child.

He still thinks that if there were any justice, any sense in the world he’d be punished for the things he’s done, punished through the one good thing he’s done, the one good thing he’s created. Even so, he can’t bring himself to walk away without answers, without a solution, without finding his way back to Laurel.

On Friday, he shuts the door to Bonnie’s office pointedly and sits down across from her.

“Do you ever feel guilty?” he asks her without preamble. “About the things you’ve done?”

He can see Bonnie’s face close off instantly, see her hide behind the walls she’s spent years constructing. He doesn't think she’s going to answer him, is surprised when she does. “Of course.”

“Do you ever think that maybe you don't deserve to be happy? Because of what you’ve done?”

Her answer is instant this time. “Never.”

“Why not?” he didn't mean for it to come out that way, but Frank’s voice sounds like begging, like he’s pleading for the answer from her.

“Because I deserve to be happy,” she tells him simply.

“But why?”

Her brows furrow slightly, nose crinkling up like it does when Bonnie doesn't really understand something. “Why do I deserve to be happy? Because why would I want to be miserable?”

“That's not really what I asked,” he tells her, hand scrubbing through his beard.

“I know it wasn't,” she answers icily, pursing her lips in that way Bonnie has of making herself look like she’s hopelessly disappointed in him. “But it's the answer I’m giving you. I don't believe in God, you know that right?”

Frank nods. He knows about Bonnie’s unexpected blasphemous streak, much to his horror when he took her to his sister’s for Easter half a dozen years ago.

“Then there’s no deserve about it,” she shrugs. “There’s no judge deciding what's good or bad or who’s worthy or unworthy. There’s no great arbiter of objective truth. There's just me.”

“And you think you deserve to be happy,” Frank finishes for her, stomach sinking. He should’ve known, should've known Bonnie’d have an answer, one she could live with, but one that didn't ring true to him. Bonnie’s been through enough shit, enough horror to be pragmatic about things, to just decide on her own she’s owed happiness after the nightmare of her childhood. And she is, Frank believes her if he’s being honest. Bonnie, of all the people he knows, deserves to be happy, deserves only good things from here to the end of time. Sure, she’s done bad shit, Rebecca first and foremost, and faking the defenestration of Emily Sinclair, but Bonnie is loyal and caring and she’s a good damn person who’s been through a laundry list of terrible things. Whatever she’s done, she’s owed more happiness than she’s been given.

“Yes.”

He nods, rises from his chair. “Ok, thanks Bon.”

“Wait,” she tells him sharply. “Whatever’s going on with you Frank, you deserve to be happy too.”

“I don't though,” he answers.

“Yeah,” she assures him vehemently. “You do. If I do, you do too.”

“We’re not the same, you an me, Bon.”

“We are though,” she insists and her eyes are big and pleading like it's all she can do to make him believe her. “You and me, we’re basically two sides of the same coin. Pull your head out of your self-pitying ass and think about it, ok? Take the weekend.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with shrinks,” he tells her, though there’s none of the heat, none of the derision he intended to put into his words. “Cause that's some pseudo-intellectual psychobabble bullshit.”

She shrugs, eyes narrowing at him. “It's whatever you want it to be. Look, you know the best piece of advice anyone ever told me, shrinks included? No one’s ever going to convince you of anything until you’re ready to hear it. So get the hell over yourself and man up for your kid ok? Quit trying to get me to make you feel better.”

“Is that what Laurel told you to tell me?” he asks finally because it sounds so much like something she’d snap at him if she were still around.

Bonnie rolls her eyes, scoffs at him. “Please. She hasn't told me shit; is actually being far more gracious about you being an idiot than I would’ve been. But I’m not blind Frank, it wasn't hard to figure out.”

He must gape at her like he’s stupid because she continues. “There’s a limited range of things you could have done that would piss Laurel off enough she moves out but somehow allows your balls to remain attached to your body. And then you’ve been wandering around the office like a kicked puppy. A drunk kicked puppy. But she’s not calling me begging to have drinks and get shitfaced trying to forget you. Ergo, you knocked her up and now you’re trying to walk it back.”

“Can't walk back a baby,” Frank sighs.

“Damn right, Frank. You can't walk back a goddamn baby.”

He sighs again at the sharp look on Bonnie’s face. “So what do I do?”

“You man up,” she instructs him, eyes hard. “Obviously. You get over whatever crisis of conscience or mental break you’re having right now and you wake up to the fact that you're having a kid whether you like it or not. And then you grovel to Laurel until she takes you back.”

“You really think it's gonna be that easy,” he says, chuckling darkly, because it's not, it's not going to be anywhere near that easy. And Bonnie’s supposed to be his wing-woman, supposed to have his back and help him figure shit out. And she’s treating this like a goddamn joke. But Laurel’s fucking serious about not wanting a damn thing to do with him until he can be the man he needs to be for their almost kid, can see their someday baby as more than a ticking time bomb, something terrifying and disastrous.

Bonnie shakes her head. “Someday, when you get over yourself you’re gonna realize I was right. That this was the easiest thing in the world to figure out. You're having a kid, but it doesn't change who you are, it doesn't change how you need to act. Just be Frank, and your kid’ll be fine. A smug little shit, but fine.”

“Bon,” he begins.

“Frank,” she cuts him off, voice suddenly soft, tentative in that way only Bonnie can do, like she’s shrinking back, guarding herself, but laced through with iron. “I know shitty dads, ok? You _know_ how shitty Bob was. And Laurel, she knows shitty dads too. But she wanted to have a baby with you, wanted you to be a father. To _her_ kid, Frank. She knows and I know you’re a good man, that you’re nothing like our fathers. She never would want to have a child with someone she thought was like her father.

“She loves me,” Frank whispers, throat tight. “She loves me and she can’t see what I am.”

“I love you, ok,” Bonnie tells him, laughing, a ragged desperation in the sound. “I love you, _you idiot,_ because you’re nothing like the man you think you are. Just, God, stop hating yourself, stop thinking that you’re the worst person that’s ever procreated. Because its insulting. It’s insulting to me and to Laurel and everyone else who actually did have an awful piece of shit excuse for a human as a father. Ok?”

“Bon,” he tries again.

“No,” she continues forcefully, eyes flashing, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. “It’s fucking insulting Frank, comparing yourself to Bob, to Laurel’s dad. You’re nothing like them. You’ve done bad things, of course you have, but you’ve never, you _would never_ do what he did to me, you’d never do what Laurel’s dad did to her. You’ve done bad things, but you’re a good man, and you’ll be such a good father. You just have to let yourself. Please just let yourself, ok?”

“I want to, I do,” he promises. “I’m gonna try.”

She nods again. “Please, Frank. Please. I want to see you be a father. You’re going to be such a good dad. Just think about it ok,” she tells him sternly, cutting him off. “Just try to hear what I’m saying. God knows you're not gonna do anything else this weekend.

He sighs, nods, because he can't say no to Bonnie, not even when he thinks she’s full of shit. He’s nothing like Bonnie, he’s a monster through and through and while she may deserve happiness, he deserves nothing but punishment for the things he’s done. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Remember what I said,” she instructs him. “You have to be willing to change or you never will.”

“You think I like feeling this way?” he asks, voice low. “I want nothing more than to change how I feel about this kid, to be excited about it and not fucking terrified.”

“That's not going to change,” Bonnie says. “You’re gonna have that fear about your baby until the day you die. But you can’t let it be the only thing you feel. Step up and be a dad.”

“I’m trying Bon, I really am.”

“I know,” she assures him. “And I’m here for you, as long as you're trying. But if you make me choose between you and your kid, you know it's not going to be you.”

He nods, hearing his father’s words in Bonnie, hearing the threat they’ve both made, the line they’ve drawn in the sand. They may love him, but they won't forgive him, won't put him ahead of a child who didn't have a choice, who simply is. Frank sighs, stands again. “I know. And I wouldn't ask you to make any other choice.”

* * *

  
He does as Bonnie asks, he can't not, he loves her, respects her too much not to, as futile as it may be.

He thinks about himself, about Bonnie, about the ways they’re different, about the ways they're the same. He comes to the same conclusion every time; Bonnie has deserved every good thing that's come into her life. And Frank, Frank’s a bad, damned man, the kind of man who ruins everything he touches, who infects everything his life with a slow creeping corruption, like a virus.

He tries to think through the difference between him and Bonnie, why he thinks she's not culpable and he is. And he comes to the same conclusion every time. Because he had a choice and he made the wrong one.

On Monday, Annalise drags him into her office, tells him not to come back until he can be useful again. As he dutifully turns to go, she stops him, voice startlingly soft, but with an edge like a knife blade pressed against his throat.

“Bonnie told me what's going on with you,” she tells him simply. “She said she instructed you to solve it.”

Frank nods, arms crossed over his chest. He’s never been comfortable in Annalise’s office, not ever, doesn't think he ever will. “And I will.”

“Good,” Annalise says, tone clipped, almost bored like she’s only deigning to chastise him because he’s fucked up so epically she couldn't not notice. “Because I don't pay you to wallow, I pay you to do your damn job.”

“Got it boss.”

“Frank,” she commands as he turns to leave. “I’m going to ask this once, and so help me god, you are going to be honest with me. Is this about my son?” Her voice goes low, rich and full and heavy and so, so dangerous. “About what happened to him? About what you did to him?”

Frank nods, head hanging low with shame and grief and guilt. He can't resist Annalise when she’s staring at him, eyes hard and mouth a thin line, when her voice is so cold it singes his flesh.

“What you did to him, to me, you can’t ever atone for,” she tells him and his stomach sinks. Because he knows that, knows it ruined him, damned him, it's something that will always be a stain on his soul, something he can't ever be forgiven for.

“You’re never going to be able to make up for what you did.”

He nods, feels the start of tears burning at the back of his eyes. They’ve barely spoken on what he did, on the relentless, unending damage he’d done. She took him back, told him she forgave him, and eventually he thinks maybe she really meant it, or at least tried to, but they didn't talk about it much and he knew it continued to fester between them, knew it was just an illusion of recovery. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Shut up,” she cuts him off. “Do you have any idea how much time I spent trying not to want that baby? How much useless effort was spent trying not to fall in love with him?”

She glares across the room at Frank, fixes him with a look that's suddenly dull and unfocused, like she’s not really seeing Frank at all. “I was so convinced that something bad would happen, again, that it was all I could think about. I couldn't allow myself to imagine anything good coming out of being pregnant again. And nothing did. And for a long time I hated myself for that, and Sam. And you. I spent a lot of time hating you,” she hisses, pointing across the desk at Frank.

“And,” she continues. “Maybe I still do. But what I hate the most is that it would’ve been so easy.”

“What?” Frank croaks.

“To love him. I fought so hard against myself to not love him. And if I had,” she shrugs, tired, defeated. “I would’ve had the eight months he was inside me to love him, to know him. But I didn't let myself do that. Because I was too scared something bad would happen again, and that it would be my fault.”

“I…,” Frank tries.

“ _Shut up,_ ” Annalise insists, voice ragged, like she’s fighting against the urge to cry. He hates seeing Annalise cry, it tears deep gashes into his chest because he knows, _knows_ its because of him, knows its his fault, that he’s the one that caused her so much pain, still causes her so much pain, even so many years later. “You’re scared too; scared something horrible’s going to happen because you deserve it. And maybe you do. And I don't care. Your kid might live until it's eighty or it might be dead before its born, like mine. But you don't get to know that and you don't get to make a choice. You can fight against every instinct telling you to love your child. Or you can just accept it. Because the outcome’s going to be the same, Frank. That was my curse, and its gonna be yours too. That however long you get, whether it's hours or years, it's never going to be enough. And you’re always going to be terrified that something terrible’s going to happen. And if it does, when it does, that terrible thing will be easier to bear if you don't feel like you wasted every second you had trying to fight the inevitable. You’re a father, Frank, act like one.”

“I don't deserve to be a father.”

“No,” she agrees. “You don't. But you are, and you should be damn grateful to Laurel and God and your pathetic sperm count that you get to be one. So be one, Frank, stop thinking about yourself and think about your child and who you need to be for that child. Because it’s not about you anymore.”

“How is it better that my child has a murderer for a father? How will that be good for anyone?”

“You may be a bad man, Frank, but you won't be a bad father if you just let yourself,” she insists. “So be a damn father.”

“Annalise…” he begins.

“Frank,” she counters, voice low and threatening. “My son is dead. And it's not your fault, but you damn sure played a part. You owe it to him not to make the same mistakes I did. Even if your child never takes a breath, you owe it to me, to _my son_ to love this child for however long you get, however scared you might be. Because it's not about you, it's about your child.”

“I’m doing the best I can for my child,” he insists.

“No,” she snaps. “You’re not. You know what your child needs. It needs you. I’ve got a lot of regrets, more than I think I can count. But what I regret most is that I didn't love my child as much as I should've when I had the chance, because I was too much of a coward and too selfish to do what was best for him. And you’re doing the same thing. And you're going to regret it too.”

He opens his mouth to speak, to argue with her because it's not that easy, not that damn simple. And then, and then, he realizes that yes, yes it is. If Annalise has done it, then he damn well can too. Annalise, of all the people he knows, of all multitude of people, good and bad and in between, is the most ruthless, the most cunning. And if she could get past all the shit she’s done, shit Frank thinks he only knows half of, well, he’d be pathetic not to try and do the same. Because she knows what he’s feeling; the terror that sets every nerve ending in his body alight, the blinding panic in his blood, the horror that someone as cursed, as damned as him should be given a strange, new, fragile creature, entrusted with a tiny almost-life. She knows.

He saw the panic in her, the reticence toward her child and saw it slowly transform itself into the tentative beginnings of love, of wanting. He saw all that and then he saw it end. He caused it to end. And if anyone can tell him what he needs to feel, if anyone can tell him how to reconcile the parts of himself, the decent and the bad and the downright horrible, well, it's Annalise.

“How’d you do it?” he asks finally, and she gives him one of those wide, closed mouthed smiles he always tries to tell himself are genuine. “How’d you finally let yourself love him?”

“I loved him either way, whether I wanted to or not,” she tells him and Frank can almost hear the catch in her throat, the rasp of long remembered pain. “I tried so hard not to and there wasn't a damn thing I could do. And if something bad happened, when something bad happened at least I got to love him for the time I was able, and hopefully he knew that, knew how I loved him at the end. Hopefully there was something in him that knew how much I wanted him, how much I loved him. And maybe that meant something, maybe it mattered. But you, you shouldn't waste whatever you’re given with this child.”

He nods, swallows hard. “Yeah,” he gulps. “Yeah, you're right.”

She is, god, she’s right, and he’s an idiot and he’s wasted so much time already, spent so much time in pain, causing Laurel pain and he doesn’t have a damn thing to show for it. He’s never going to be able to protect himself from his child, never going to be able to guard his heart enough that it won’t hurt, enough that he won’t worry, every single day, about Laurel, about the baby. It’s gonna hurt, that much is clear, and he can choose to make it hurt less or he can choose to make it hurt more. For himself, for Laurel, for his almost-child.

If bad things happen, _when_ bad things happen, and they will, of course they will, he wants to be there, doesn’t want to learn about it fourth hand from Bonnie or his sister, doesn’t want to have his child suffer without him. He wants to know his child, for however long it gets, wants to love that child for however long Frank gets. He wants his child, its as simple as that, and so, so impossibly complicated he can’t begin to untangle what it all means. All Frank knows is that he can’t pretend anymore, can’t pretend that distance, that walling off his heart will protect him, will protect his child. He’s either in or he’s out, but the pain will be the same. And he wants his child. He does. More than he can ever put into words, he wants.

And yeah, he needs to stop thinking about himself, needs to stop putting himself first. He’s got a goddamn child now, or almost has, will have, a tiny, fragile sapling of a creature that can’t protect itself, that needs, just _needs_ and Frank’s a piece of shit if he can’t just put his own aside for this baby, keeps putting himself and his fears and his anxiety and the things he thinks he needs over what he knows his child needs. His maybe child needs him, needs Laurel, needs their undivided attention, and whether Frank, his terrible sins, result in a terrible fate for his nearly baby, well, he thinks there’s nothing he can do to change that.

But what he can change, what he fucking _needs_ to change, is how he deals with that, with that fear, with the near certainty that sometime, someplace, _something_ is going to hurt his child, cause his child pain. He can blame himself and he can run away and he create more pain, create more loss, or he can be the father his child needs, that it deserves and try to lessen it.

He’s a creature that causes pain, has caused so damn much of it it sometimes feels like he’s downing, choking on blood, but he can be something different, _choose_ to be something better than that for his child. He can choose not to be like Annalise or Bonnie or Laurel’s, god, not like Laurel’s father, or he can choose to be just as horrible as they were, to do just as much damage to his maybe child. He can be the father his child needs, that his baby deserves or he can’t.

Annalise is right, it really is that easy. “You’re right,” he says again, throat tight with the immensity of what he knows, finally, to be the truth.

Annalise rolls her eyes, expression stony once again, hard and unforgiving. “Of course I’m right. So do what I say, and don't come back until you’re ready to put your kid first. I don't pay you to mope around uselessly.”

Frank smiles crookedly, feels like the first time in days that he’s done anything but frown. “I got it. I’ll try to be back tomorrow, I just gotta figure some things out.”

Annalise shakes her head firmly, gives him a pointed look, like he’s some stupid child who can't figure things out on his own.

“You have to talk to your girlfriend. That's what you have to do. I’ll give you till Thursday.”

“Thursday, got it,” he replies.

“Now get out of here,” she tells him, already turning back to the open case files on her desk. “I’m certainly not paying you to waste any more of my time.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, this fic did grow two chapters while no one was looking...i had an ending and it was good and i liked it, but the one you're gonna get now is better. Trust.  
> Also, things get slightly less cripplingly sad this chapter, so, yay?

Frank goes home, tries to figure out how exactly he’s going to convince Laurel to come back to him, to let him back in her life, in their someday child’s life. He just doesn't know what to say. He doesn't even really know what he feels. He doesn't know if he ever will.

But he can't let that stop him, that doubt, that worry that if he doesn't have everything right, doesn't have the right words he’ll fail, he’ll lose her, fully, finally, completely.

He goes home, sits on his couch with a full tumbler of whiskey, stares at his phone as though the answers will be revealed to him if he just waits long enough, believes hard enough. He sends the text before he can reconsider, before he can let his worry control him.

_Can we talk? Please?_

He doesn't really expect an answer, not right away, but still, he feels his breath trip over something tight in his chest as the text sends, as he stares at it on his phone screen, imagines it popping up onto Laurel’s, wonders if she will read it or ignore it, wonders if it will make a little feeling like hope burst in her chest or her stomach sink with dread. He stares at the screen for long minutes, willing a reply to appear. Eventually he gives up, shuts his phone off and drains his tumbler.

He goes for beer next, grabs three from the fridge so he doesn't have to make more trips than needed. He’s finishing up the second, figuring he’ll spend the evening once again drinking himself into unconsciousness so he doesn't need to think about Laurel, about their nearly-baby when his phone chimes.

_Carla's. 6:30._

Short, to the point. He knows Laurel well enough to know that it means she's still mad, but more than that, she doesn't think it's worth her effort, doesn't think he’ll have anything to say that's worth hearing. She’s already halfway to giving up on him.

He knows she wouldn't want to do this in public unless she expects its will be a short, futile conversation, unless she expects they will have nothing of worth to discuss.

He frowns hard at the phone, ignores the building desire in his blood to crack open the last beer, settle the fear, the grief pounding in his blood already. This meeting seems too much like a goodbye already and they haven't said a damn thing yet.

_I’ll be there. I love you. Both of you._

He doesn't know what else to say, but he knows he needs to say that, knows he must be honest if they have any hope of getting through this together. He glances at the flashing neon clock on the cable box; he’s got another hour until he needs to be at the Italian place down the block.

He heads out anyway, knows if he stays in the apartment he’s not gonna do anything other than get increasingly drunk or fall asleep or overthink things, overthink what he needs to say to Laurel. They're all bad ideas and he’s not going to let himself fall into that trap.

So he heads down to Carla’s early, grabs a table in the back, as isolated from the rest of the place as he can. He’s enough of a regular there that Vinny, the owner, doesn't give him more than a cursory confused look when Frank bypasses the counter and just takes a table instead. He wants to wait until he sees what kind of disaster this meeting is going to be before he lets himself relax enough to get food. It's a Monday night, far from crowded enough anyone’s gonna give him grief about taking up a table for an hour without ordering, especially a longtime patron like Frank.

He tries to shut his brain off, tries not to think about all the ways he could screw this up, all the ways he could turn this disaster into a complete catastrophe. And then he asks himself what's the worst that could happen, because the worst things already happened. He’s already lost Laurel, his nearly child; they’re already gone and unless he fixes things they’re not coming back. So what if he can't pull the plane out of a nosedive, Frank thinks, it's already going down, he’s already braced himself for the crash and the impact, well, it can't be any worse than he’s imagining it will be. Maybe he can make things better, maybe he can prove to Laurel that he means it, that he wants her, wants their tiny almost baby, and maybe he can't.

But if he can't, well, it's not like he’s gonna screw things up more, he’ll still be without her, without his child, and he doesn't think he can think of anything worse, think of anything more painful.

He tries to focus on the TV in the corner playing Sportscenter, but that's easier said than done, really. He can't quite figure out how to settle his hammering heart, slow his breathing to something approximating normal, can’t keep the tremble from his fingers, like he’s vibrating at a frequency almost to high to see. There's an anticipation like dread settling low in his stomach like a weight, pressing down on his shoulders and it feels like ice has been pumped into his veins, settling around his hand and through his fingers and he wonders if the feeling will ever go away.

At quarter past six, Laurel bursts in. She doesn't look around, doesn't even glance over at Vinny behind the counter, just heads straight towards Frank’s table in the back of the restaurant. God he thinks, she knows him too well, knows him better than he thinks he knows himself. She knows exactly where he will be, knows why he will be there, because she knows Frank will expect nothing to go right tonight, will expect their meeting to end in disaster. She knows too, he will not have ordered anything, will be sitting at an empty table, waiting for her.

She strides through the restaurant, eyes held straight ahead, the sound of her boots clicking against the stone floor like gunshots. Laurel’s come from work, still in a sleek black dress falling to her knees, gray jacket thrown over her shoulders, though she’s rolled the sleeves up to her elbows in a surprisingly casual gesture.

She looks like she’s going into battle, Frank thinks before he can help himself; head high and jaw stiff and her eyes cold and calculating. She’s already bracing herself for bad news.

Laurel drops into the booth across from him, forearms resting lightly against the table between them, threads her fingers together and watches him, silent and wary. She raises one eyebrow slightly, and inclines her head to him, questioning, expectant.

“I,” he starts, falters. “Thanks for being willing to meet with me.”

“Michaela told me I should,” she tells him shortly.

“Well thank Michaela for me then,” he offers, hates how his voice is rough, tentative, hates how the smile he tries to flash her is small and scared. “You uh, you look good.”

“Why are we here Frank?” she asks coldly, ignoring him, pursing her lips and he watches her clasped hands tighten even further.

“I want to apologize for how I acted,” he tells her, hands falling against the wooden table, palms spread flat against the surface. He watches Laurel’s own hands retreat, fall into her lap as though she’s unwilling to let Frank get within six inches of her body. He watches, breath catching, as her left hand settles, for just a moment, so quick he nearly misses it, against the still-flat plane of her stomach, brushes against space where their child lurks. Her eyes never leave his and Frank is struck, suddenly, his chest tightening and his eyes pricking with tears, that her hand moves instinctively, comforting, protecting their tiny, barely there child.

An emotion like awe, tinged with grief and love and worship, arcs through his chest, sets his words tightening in his throat. God, he thinks, Laurel is already an amazing mother. And he’s nothing, _nothing_ , just a pathetic, cowardly creature who was willing to walk away from this, from Laurel and the child he created.

He’s no fucking better than her father, he thinks, sob rising unbidden in his throat, no better than the man willing to walk away from Laurel when it counted, willing to leave her in the hands of men with masks and guns and terrible, evil intentions.

He was asked to be there when it counted, when it really fucking mattered, and he let her down, let his child down. He doesn’t deserve her, doesn’t deserve this baby, he knows that, but damnit, _damnit_ , he’s going to do everything he can anyway, to make up for it, to be the father he should be, the man Laurel, his almost child, the people he loves most deserve.

If she’ll let him, god, only if she’ll let him.

“I was stupid, and scared,” Frank continues, swallowing hard against the fear singing in his bones. “And I’m sorry. I’m sure you were scared too, but you can't walk away, not like I could. And that was so, so shitty of me.”

“Yes,” she agrees shortly. “It was.”

“I just, I want to explain, why I did what I did,” he tells her. “And I hope you’ll forgive me, and, I dunno, even if you don't wanna come back, I hope maybe you’ll let me be a father to this kid.”

She continues to stare at him across the table, eyes cold and expression blank. “So explain.”

“I got scared,” he starts again. “Thinking about what it meant to be a dad, have a kid. It freaked me the hell out, being responsible for another human, _creating_ another human. It…I’ve done so many shitty things in my life, the thought of having created something that's the opposite of that, something that's completely pure and good, it was too damn much. Being responsible for not fucking that up, it was too damn much. And I panicked.”

“You did,” Laurel agrees and he can see nothing thawing in her face, nothing easing in her eyes, no emotion creeping into her voice. It sounds hollow and distant and bored, like she can't wait to leave, like she’s just going through the motions until Frank tires himself out. “And what guarantee is there that you won't freak out again?”

“I…,” he shrugs, runs a hand across his beard. “I don't know. I don't think there is. But I promise you the next time I panic I won't shut you out, I’ll let you know and maybe we'll get through it together.”

“You’re not talking to me now,” she interjects, leaning back in the booth, taking her body as far from him as she can in the small space.

“I am,” he tells her. “I’m trying here, Laurel.”

“Not hard enough,” she snaps. “You wanted this baby when it was just hypothetical, and then you didn't. You made that pretty damn clear.”

“I do, I do want this baby, so, so bad,” he confesses, voice ragged. “But I convinced myself I’d ruin things, that I wouldn’t be good enough. And I know how stupid that was, how cowardly that was. I do. I'll never do it again.”

“I don't believe you,” Laurel says, shrugging, glancing away from him for a long moment while he watches her blink away the start of tears, like she refuses to shed anymore over him. Frank thinks that he deserves that. “The second things got hard, the second you had any doubt, you abandoned me. Abandoned your child.”

He nods. “I did. And I’m sorry. I realized I can't do that, that I've got to put this baby first and can't be concerned about myself anymore. I’m sorry it took so long for me to figure it out, I am. But I’m all in, with you, if you’ll have me.”

“You were supposed to be all in before, Frank,” she tells him, sighing hard. “You were the one who wanted a baby, who talked me into it, convinced me it was a good idea. We were supposed to be a team in this, because you're right, it's scary as shit. And then you left me to it. So fuck you, you can't just come back and tell me oh, it's fine, now that you’ve done your walkabout or whatever. No.”

“Then what? We’re done?”

“I don't know what we are,” she tells him, and God, Frank wishes she’s raise her voice, yell, get angry because that he could deal with. But instead, Laurel’s voice barely changes pitch and he can only hear the echo of an edge in it, like once she was angry, once she was hurt but it's faded like a bruise until only a shadow remains. “Because I don't know you anymore.”

“Of course you do,” he assures her.

“No,” she cuts him off. “I don't. The Frank I thought I knew would never do what you did. No one’s ever wanted me, not really, not in a way that counted. Not even my parents. Especially not my parents. And you did. Or I convinced myself you did, I let myself believe that you meant it. And that you’d do right by any child we had, because you’d wanted it, it wasn't gonna be some Catholic mistake.”

“Oh Laurel,” he whispers, wants to take her into his arms, wants to tell her he’s sorry, he didn't mean it, he was stupid, so fucking stupid but he’ll be who she needs him to be from here on out. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don't care,” she tells him coldly, drawing back again. “Being sorry doesn't fix anything. You walked away the second things got tough. How can I ever trust you again? How am I supposed to trust that you won't do it again when our kid’s old enough to know that you didn't give a shit?”

“Because I’m willing to spend the rest of my life proving it,” he offers, hands resting against the table, palms up like he’s asking for mercy. He is. “Proving how sorry I am, what a huge mistake I made.”

“That's the thing,” she cuts him off with a shrug. “I still don't get it. You were dead set on having a kid, how we should have one and it’d be perfect and…and then as soon as it was real you couldn't get away fast enough. And now you’re all in again. How can I trust that when you’ve gone back on me twice already?”

“That's something you’re gonna have to figure out for yourself,” he tells her, knowing that he can try and explain and try and convince her and unless Laurel’s willing to let him back in her life, in their child’s life, well, nothing he says will matter. “I can explain if you want, but you’re gonna have to decide if it's good enough or not.”

She shrugs a little. “Go ahead then, convince me.”

He shakes his head slightly, runs a hand across his beard. “I’m not convincing you. I don't want to do that. I just want to let you know what made me balk and you can decide what to do with that information.”

“Fine.”

“It was Lila. And Annalise’s son,” he says quickly, watches the way Laurel tenses, flinches, the way a little hiss escapes her lips before she can suppress it. “What I did to them. I, I killed two children and now I was gonna have one of my own, and I just…if there was any justice in the world, I thought that I couldn't possibly be allowed to have this child. Because of what I'd done, killing children.”

Laurel watches him, a strange stillness coming over her features like she’s been frozen. He doesn't think even her eyes move as she waits for him to continue.

“When you told me, about the baby, I was so damn happy, you gotta believe that was true. Then I started thinking about how little I deserved to be when I took that away from people, killed their kids. And I knew I’d be punished for it, somehow, for what I’d done,” he can hear the tears at the edge of his voice, swallows them down, stops speaking until he can continue without them because Laurel is looking at him with an expression like stone; hard and cold and weathered. She is not going to be swayed by his emotions and she doesn't want them, not tonight. She wants his confession. “I couldn't handle that, if something terrible happened, if our kid got punished for what I’d done. So I tried to convince myself I didn't feel anything, that if I didn't care about the baby it wouldn't be made to pay for the things I did. Or if I…if I left before anything bad happened, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if it did, maybe it wouldn't kill me if something happened to our baby because of me.”

“So you left me to it?” she asks, eyebrows raised and he can feel the anger rolling off her, hot and fast. “To whatever you thought was going to happen, good or bad or…you left me to face it on my own?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, chest tight. “I left you to it. I left the baby to it. And I shouldn’t’ve done that either. You, God, I didn’t even think about what it would do you to, having someone else abandon you when you needed them, I was just panicking, thinking only of myself. And I’m fucking sorry, so fucking sorry. You, you’re probably dealing with the same shit, more maybe, and I didn't even stop to think about that. I just had to get outta there, had to get the hell away. I couldn't even let myself think about how terrifying it musta been for you, this little thing you can't escape, can't ignore, and all you want to do is run.”

She nods, and for a moment half a smile flares behind her eyes. “Some days it's more like a horror movie than anything else.”

He tries to grin as well, finds himself grimacing instead. “I was selfish and cowardly. And I don't deserve you or this kid. I know that. But I’m the only dad it’s got right now and I don't know if that’s good enough for you. But I’d like it to be. I’d like you to let me have a second chance. To prove that I mean it, to prove that I can be a father, a good one, the one our kid deserves. I get it now, finally. That I gotta quit thinking of myself and start thinking of the baby and you. That if something bad happens, I gotta face it because that's part of being a father too, being there if things go horrible. I’m not running away again, no matter what happens. I’m here, forever, if you’ll take me.”

Laurel watches him for long moments, teeth sinking harshly into her lower lip, something working repetitively in her jaw. He can see the emotions flash behind her eyes, can't see the thoughts that must be racing through her mind, but he can see the emotions; anger and fear and caution and wanting. He notices too, the way her hand sinks down over her stomach, rests there, her fingers curling into the space there, just slightly. She’s doing what he should've done, done from the start, thinking of their almost kid, thinking of what's best for it and not for her.

Something arcs through him, quick and crackling like lightening, and it's like he’s seeing the world in a new spectrum of colors. He’s loved Laurel for so long, loved her so fiercely, so completely, and suddenly he realizes he can love her in a whole, strange new dimension; that he can love her, desperately, adoringly, for the mother she will be, for the mother she already is.

He didn't know it was possible, before he met her, to love someone as much as he loves Laurel. He’d thought he knew the extent of his heart, knew how much adoration could be packed inside it. He was wrong, so, so wrong. He doesn't know if there’s a limit, but he knows he hasn’t reached it yet, because there’s abruptly a whole new world of ways he can love her, reasons why he does. And Frank wants, he wants. 

He wants to be there when Laurel holds their child for the first time, wants to be there when she puts it to bed, wants to feel left out and proud in equal measures when the two of them inevitably switch to Spanish to talk about something that excludes him, wants to be holding Laurel’s hand on their kid’s first day of school, pretending that he’s not tearing up just as badly as she is. He wants to be there too, for the bad things, for shots and colds and broken arms and things that are so much worse, wants to be there to hold Laurel, to watch her strength and her weakness when things get tough, watch her love their child through anything, everything. He wants to be a father to this child, but equal to that, he wants to be able to see Laurel be a mother.

Finally though, she speaks. When she does her voice is level, slow like she’s still trying to make certain she’s choosing the right path, making the correct decision. “You say you want to prove you want to be a father. That's exactly what I want you to do,” she tells him, teeth sinking into her lower lip harshly. “You want to prove you deserve this child, I’m holding you to it.”

“How?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Laurel may or may not use the phrase "manic pixie dream baby." Don't ask...

“I’ve got another appointment next Friday,” she tells him. “Start by showing up this time.”

Frank nods. “What time?”

“Does it matter?” she counters, scoffing.

“No,” he assures her. “I’ll be there.”

“4:00,” she tells him cautiously, eyes narrowing. “Last appointment of the day.”

He nods. “Got it. I’ll show for this one. Do you, uh, do you still have that printout from the last one?”

Her eyes narrow further in confusion.

“The ultrasound thingy,” he clarifies. “Do you still have it?”

“I do,” she tells him, still cautious.

“Can I, can I maybe have a copy?” he asks. “I saw it on the fridge, where you’d put it. And I’ve been thinking about it since. Thinking about our kid.”

Laurel watches him for long, long moments, waits for him to break, to crack, to take it all back. Eventually, when he doesn't, she reaches over into her bag, pulls out her wallet and snaps it open. She gives him another look, inscrutable, and something pulls tight at the corners of her mouth. Finally, she draws out a folded piece of paper, hands it across to him. “I have another one at home,” she tells him finally, glancing away and blinking rapidly. “Well, at Michaela’s.”

“Thanks,” he tells her softly, unfolding the piece of paper, staring down at the image of his barely-child, black and grey and shadowed, like the outline of the person that someday maybe could be. Once again he traces his fingers over the curve of his maybe-child’s body, brushes over the image gently like he wants to hold this creature he created in his hands.

“It's probably doubled in size by now,” Laurel says, eyes swinging to her left like she’s trying to sound nonchalant, but Frank can hear the note of awe in her voice, and the tension in her voice like a string drawn tight, watchful of his reaction. “Probably like the size of a bell pepper or something.”

“Huh,” Frank huffs. “No shit. It's crazy that the kid’s gonna go from that to a whole person before we realize it.”

“I’m gonna realize it,” she counters, rolling her eyes, a little frown setting her eyes looking angry. “When I can't see my feet and I have to pee every four minutes and my feet are the size of yours.”

“You’re gonna be fucking gorgeous,” he assures her, voice thick. “And when the kid shows up, it’ll all be worth it.”

“And then when I get woken up at 3:00 in the morning, I’ll regret it again.”

“You’re not gonna regret it, not even at 3:00 a.m.”

“No,” she agrees softly, glancing away. “I’m not.”

“The moment I saw that ultrasound photo, saw our kid, I knew I couldn't regret it anymore, couldn't regret that you an me made something so perfect.”

“Michaela thinks he looks like a tadpole,” Laurel says, voice equally soft, like she’s sharing some sacred secret with him, some truth held tight and close to her heart. Her lips twitch, just slightly, into what could maybe blossom into a smile. “I think he’s more like a, like a lizard or something.”

“He, huh?” Frank asks, grinning wide before he can help himself, teasing, because leave it to Laurel to know, already, or convince herself she knows, that it's a boy. When he imagined having a child with Laurel, he’d imagined this moment, this conviction that she’d know, instinctively, insistently, whether it was a boy or girl curled tight inside her.

She nods, eyes flashing and suddenly, suddenly it's how it should be between them, how it once was, light and easy and with none of the heavy, weight of grief and fear and worry. He tries to ignore the hard kernel of regret churning in his stomach, because it's his fault, it's because of him they’re dancing around each other like they’re strangers who were once lovers. They are really, people who once knew, once loved each other and now he can't tell whether they’re moving apart or closer together, can't tell if they’ll find themselves again or drift into darkness. But maybe, if they can get more moments like this, more moments that make them remember just how good it could be between them, how easy, how right, maybe they can continue on together. And when Frank sees her eyes, shining with some wholly unexpected mix of determination and certainty and mirth, well, he thinks maybe he has a chance. “Trust me, T-Rex arms there is definitely a boy.”

“T-Rex may be a boy someday,” Frank says, chuckling crookedly. “But right now the kid’s probably feeling more like gender is a construct.”

Laurel laughs, high and sharp, before she clamps her mouth shut and looks away, embarrassed, her cheeks coloring. 

“You calling it T-Rex?” Frank asks, letting his grin go wide.

Laurel shrugs, and caution settles around her shoulders once again, like a cape, like armor. “Sometimes. Michaela calls him Mr. Bean. Or Hank.”

“Hank?” he asks incredulously.

She rolls her eyes. “She has some theory that babies have to have dad names. She tried Kurt first.”

“You’re right,” he tells her. “Hank’s better.”

Laurel hums slowly. “Hank and Frank, I never even thought of it till now.”

“Still, I like it.”

“I’m not naming him Hank,” she says and he can see the walls slam shut, can see the hurt flood into her eyes, the cold, cold silence creep into her heart, cementing over the mistrust and the anger. Its like she walked forward two steps and and then hopped on a train headed in the other direction. They're back where they started, or worse, because Laurel’s gonna be beating herself up for letting him charm her, for letting herself want, just for a moment, for things to go back the way they were, for letting herself remember how much she loves him, how much she wanted, once, to have this baby with him.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Frank tells her placatingly. “Can't give a little kid a dad name. I’m surprised Michaela didn't want to call it Earl or something.”

Laurel’s nose crinkles before she can help herself, little lines tugging at the space between her eyebrows. “She probably would've if she’d thought of it. Earl’s a much better dad name than Hank.”

“Sorry, kid,” he says, inclining his head slightly towards Laurel, towards where their child rests. “You clearly missed out on my awesome nickname talents. So you’re gonna be stuck with T-Rex and Hank till your ma can figure out a real name.”

The corners of her mouth pull into a small smile, so tiny he probably would’ve missed it had he not been so focused on her face, so focused on every minute shift in her expression. He loves it already, loves thinking of Laurel as a mother, as the mother of his almost child, loves the cautiously pleased expression on her face, a blinding happiness she tries to smother, tries to hold tight to her chest so he can't see when he refers to her as the mother of this impending child.

“How're you feeling though?” he continues, willing himself to keep going until Laurel shuts him down completely. “You look good, but…”

“Fine,” she tells him shortly before she sighs, runs a hand through her hair. “Exhausted. Nauseous. Scared shitless. Angry. I’ve been great.”

“When’d you start getting morning sickness?”

Laurel smiles ruefully, only half tinged with bitterness. “Basically as soon as I took the test. Like my body was just waiting for me to realize what was going on before punishing me. I was sure you’d noticed, even with sneaking off before I woke up.”

“I’m sorry for that too,” Frank lets out a long breath. “I promised to hold your hair back when you got sick, didn't I?”

She nods. “You did. Michaela tries, but,” she shrugs, casually, but Frank can see the lingering hurt, the betrayal in her eyes, the dull ache of being alone and scared in a fight she was told she wouldn't have to go through without him. “But she’s not great with me hogging the bathroom in the morning puking my guts out. And she really, really hates when I throw up and cry.”

“I should thank her,” Frank says. “For looking out for you both when I wasn't up to it.”

Laurel nods sharply. “You should. She’s been a better father than you have so far.”

He opens his mouth to say something, to apologize again maybe, but Laurel speaks again.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, sighing, pushing her hair back tight against her scalp with one hand. “That was…I shouldn’t’ve said that.”

“It's true though, isn't it?”

“It is,” she nods, scowls down at her hands like she can’t bear to look at him anymore, can’t bear to remember what once was, what now is. “Look, I’m, I’m sorry. I’m just so damn angry at you, still. I don’t know if that’s going to change anytime soon.”

“I know,” he nods, because its true, because she should be angry at him, because he was a coward and he left her and their child and this, all this, this distance, this coldness, its his fault. “You should be. You should be angry about what I did.”

“No,” she sighs, looking up sharply, just for a moment before looking away again, her eyes flashing and her jaw tight. “I shouldn't. Because I need to do what’s right for our child, because you didn’t, you couldn’t and someone here has to be a goddamn adult. I need to put him first, treat him like the person he’s going to be and not some fucking metaphor, some lesson for you to learn.”

“I know the baby’s…” he begins, pleading, his heart sinking because she’s right, she’s always right and maybe that’s his greatest sin, that he couldn’t even think of the baby as something that would someday be a person, something that needed to be considered, factored in, something that deserved to be prioritized. He treated his child like it wasn’t real, because maybe, to him, it wasn’t. And he can’t do that, not anymore, because its not here yet, not its own creature yet, but its real and its here and he needs to start acting like a father, same way Laurel’s acting like a mother, putting their child ahead of anything she wants, needs.

“No, you don’t,” she snaps. “You don’t. This is a baby, Frank, a person, not something that’s going to be used to punish you or deliver some deeper message to you, some revelation. This isn’t a manic pixie dream baby Frank, it’s a person, or he will be. And anything that happens, it happens to the baby, to him, not to you. Ok? You’re not the center of the goddamn universe, you selfish, narcissistic ass.”

“I know,” he tries, but her eyes flash again, and he knows its no good, no use, because she doesn’t believe him. He’s not sure he would either, not after what he did. He’s fucked up so bad, he thinks, fear running cold across his veins, into his fingertips, his heart, so completely he’s not sure it’s something he can, they can come back from. It feels irrevocable, in a way none of the fights they’ve ever had before have, and he knows it’s because of the third person standing between them, the new, tiny life Laurel has to think about, has to protect, can’t just send her own heart out into the abyss to be hurt or broken or trampled on, but has to worry about the child’s, their child’s and its hurts, has to protect it, even, perhaps, from Frank, from it’s own father. “I know, Laurel. I do now. I know that I can’t put myself first, that the baby comes first.”

“No Frank,” she says, sighing wearily again, voice edged, the look on her face practically a snarl, her hands balled into fists in her lap. “Of course the baby comes first, that’s the bare minimum you can do. But that’s not even what I mean. I mean you can’t treat the baby like a metaphor, like something that’s a reflection of you, what you do, what you've done. This is a _person_ Frank, and anything that happens, it happens to _him_ , not to you. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, and if you can’t accept that, if you can’t get beyond yourself and put this baby first, then, well,” she shrugs, eyes sliding away as she blinks rapidly, blinks away tears. “Then maybe you don’t deserve your child.”

“Laurel,” he tells her, voice low, wishes, wishes he could take her hand, that she’d let him take her hand. He’s a long, long way from Laurel letting him touch her, he knows that much, can see the walls she’s built between them, strong and sturdy and impenetrable because if there’s one thing Laurel Castillo is good at doing, its building walls, shielding herself from the things other people do to her, the ways they try to hurt her, the thousands of ways they try to hurt her. “That’s what I’m gonna do. Put the baby first. Stop thinking that I’m gonna be punished, that the baby’s gonna be punished because of me, what I’ve done. I know how stupid that is, and I’m trying not to think it, I am. I’m gonna stop acting like I’m the only one who matters, because you do, and the baby does and I’m not the center of the universe, I’m not. You’re the center, and the baby and I’m gonna be happy just to orbit you, ok.”

She nods stiffly. “Good. And if something happens,” she takes in a deep, shaking breath, steadies herself, her shaking hand once again slipping down to cover her stomach, brushing over their child, protecting it even from the thought of harm. Her voice isn’t angry, not really, just low ad steady and controlled, disappointed almost, like she’s already decided he won’t be able to come through, deliver, won’t be able to live up to his promises. He earned that, he thinks, earned that distrust, that caution, earned the distance she’s put between them, the walls she’s built up again, strong and tall.

It makes Frank hurt, deep in his chest like his heart’s been squeezed so tight it doesn’t have the room to beat, because Laurel’s been through too much, been hurt so much and for so long and he promised he’d never do that do her, had promised and had meant it and now he has, now he’s just another body in a long line of people who have hurt her, betrayed her, made her false promises and walked away. And it hurts him worse because he knows, he knows that it hurt her worse than anyone before. 

It hurt her worse because she let herself love him, because she let herself trust him enough to have this baby with him, and then he walked away, proved himself, proved her a liar and left her with a new, tiny creature, left her alone with the baby, to whatever happened. It hurt her worse, he knows, because he was the first person to hurt her child, the first person to not live up to his promises for the baby, the first betrayal the new creature in her stomach felt and Laurel, Laurel couldn’t protect the baby from him, from Frank, from the one person she shouldn’t have had to. 

And it hurts, yeah, it really fucking hurts, deep in his chest, low in his gut, it tears at him, knowing he’s responsible for this, for hurting Laurel, for hurting his child, for hurting them worse, maybe, than he can ever come back from. “If something happens, Frank, its not your fault and it has nothing to do with you. And it will be a fucking insult to our child if you pretend it does, if you make it about yourself and not him. You understand?”

He nods, mutely, because this is perhaps the angriest he’s ever seen her without actually being angry at all and she’s right, and he deserves it, deserves her anger, wish she’d show it to him and not this cold, sad disappointment, because he’s fucking selfish and he’s stupid and he didn’t put his child first, not when it counted and the only response to that should be rage.

“And I want you to understand why I’m mad ok, because you should understand that too,” she tells him forcefully, her chin raised, tight like she’s expecting a fight, expecting him to hit back at her. “I’m angry cause you didn't talk to me Frank. We're supposed to be a team and you didn't talk to me, let me know what was going on in your head. And how the hell are we going to get through this, get through having a kid and being parents and everything that means if we can't talk, if you don't trust me to tell me what you're thinking. It's bullshit Frank and it’s your fault and I’m so, so angry that I was alone, that I’m still alone, really, that you did this to our child.”

“I know,” he tells her, half confession, half begging. “I know I should've talked to you and I'm sorry and it's my fault and I fucked everything up because I didn't let you in, and I didn’t let you know what I was thinking. I promised I'd be honest with you, always, and I let you down and thought I was protecting you and I was so fucking wrong because I was just hurting you more. And I know that. You're a part of everything that happens with my kid and any hurting I'm doing you're feeling too and it's fucked up I was so selfish I couldn't see that, and I’m so damn sorry. Ok, I’m sorry and I’ll...I can’t fix it but I’ll never do it again, I’ll never cut you out again.”

“Ok,” she nods stiffly, glancing away again, and just like that, whatever she was feeling is gone, vanished, buried somewhere deep within herself, gone from every line and curve of her body. like she forces herself to believe him, to put her faith in him, again, her trust in him, allows him another chance, after he’s hurt her so deeply, so permanently, allows him another chance to do the same thing, to hurt her again, walk away from her, she stiffens her spine and guards her heart as best she can and tells him that he can hurt her again if he wants, but she’s trusting him, even though she shouldn’t, even though he’s betrayed her, she’s trusting him not to, trusting him to love her as much as she loves him, as much as he claims he does. She still refuses to meet his eyes though, still won’t let him see the lingering hurt in her. “I’m sorry. I’ll try not to be so upset, try to let go of being pissed. As long as you’re trying, I’ll try too. For him.”

“Are we…,” he begins. “Are we gonna be able to be ok? Someday?”

Laurel glances up sharply and her hand slides, once again, down to brush against the span of her stomach. He thinks that even when their child isn't the focus of their conversation, even when their child isn't directly at issue, he thinks that Laurel is thinking of it, always aware of the tiny little spark of existence inextricably entwined with hers. 

“I hope so, but I don't really know,” she confesses, biting sharply at her lower lip. “I really, really wanted to do this with you, Frank. I didn't want to do it at all until you. And then I thought that there might be something to it, kids, if I had them with someone who loved me as much as I thought you did, who’d put our child first. And then you didn't.”

“Look,” Frank tells her, voice ragged as he tries to stifle the urge to reach out, grasp her fingers in his and never let go. God, he’s fucked up so bad, fucked up so completely that he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to fix things completely. Even if he’s the perfect man, the perfect father from here on out, he thinks Laurel will still question him, still have a little needle of fear in the back of her mind, always. Their child could be twenty and in college and Frank could probably be the five time all-state Father of the damn year and he still thinks Laurel would wonder, sometimes, in her darkest moments, whether Frank’s gonna turn around and walk away, walk out. “I don't know if I'm ever going to be certain, about anything, but I'm certain I want to try. I'm certain I want it to be with you. If you want more, I can't give it to you, but I know what I want and I know I’m gonna fight for it now, whatever it takes.”

She runs her fingers across her lips, teeth catching on her thumbnail before she nods slowly. When she speaks her voice is tight, thick like she’s trying to hold back a tide of something heavy and desperate. “You don't have to fight. I don't want you to fight. Just don't leave us again, ok? Please don't leave us again.”

He nods, swallows thickly and tries to keep the choking sob that threatens to burst from his mouth at bay. “I’m gonna do my best, ok? I don't wanna live without you, ether of you.”

She sucks in a shuddering breath, swipes her thumbs under her eyes, dashing away the gathering tears. “Just be the man our child deserves this time.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah.”

Silence falls between them, heavy, weighty in a way it rarely did between them, before. It seems less like they don't know what to say and more like there’s too much to say, too many words that fall between them, paper airplanes thrown across a chasm. Laurel can barely even look at him, keeps taking quick, furtive glances up at his face before her eyes slide away, down to the table, to her hands, nervously running the thumb of her right hand over the back of her left, slowly, repetitively, like she’s trying to soothe herself, calm her still racing heart.

And Frank’s no better, he’s staring across at Laurel like he’ll never get enough of the sight of her, running his fingers along the soft, fraying edges of the ultrasound printout, round and round.

“Manic pixie dream baby huh?” he asks finally, giving my her a look, slanted, smirking, decides to try to break some of the thickness between them, the tension, the miles and miles of distance stretching between them like a canyon. "Really?"

“I know,” she tells him, eyes rolling and his stomach swoops at the sight of it, at her answering grin, easy and quick. He imagines a door, small, wooden opening in the walls between them. Its not much, he thinks, but its enough to go through, enough to start “Sounded good at the time.”

He laughs again. “Oh, it works,” he tells her. “Just…”

“Yeah,” she tells him, reaching out across the table, grasping his hand in hers, familiar and soft and for a long, infinite moments Frank feels his heart stop, feels it catch in his chest because her body is still so familiar to him, still something he yearns for deep within his skin, his soul. “Yeah I know its tortured.”

“Its tortured,” he agrees, thumb slipping against her knuckles, never wanting to let go, never wanting to leave her. “But I like it.”

Laurel looks up, blushes again, but doesn’t slip her hands from his, leaves their fingers joined for long perfect moments.

“Bonnie told me you were dealing with a lot,” Laurel says finally. “Working through things. Are you still?”

“I don't know,” he tells her. “I think so, maybe. I’ve got a lot of things I think I need to deal with. Things I didn't even realize I wasn't dealing with till T-Rex showed up.”

Laurel sucks in a shaky breath. “When you first brought it up, trying for a kid; I had to deal with all that too. All the shit I was carrying around, mostly from my dad, some of it,” she smiles wryly, only a tinge of bitterness in her eyes. “From Annalise. I was ok, I was surviving when it was just me. But I knew I couldn't do it and worry about another person if I was barely keeping myself together. I knew I had to get myself to a place where I could be what I needed to be for a baby, not just keeping myself afloat.”

“I wish I’d realized that too,” he tells her. “But I convinced myself of my own bullshit, convinced myself that I was ok.”

“Kids have a way of exposing a lot of the bullshit we tell ourselves,” Laurel says softly.

He nods, grins mockingly. “Kids don’t give a shit about our shit.”

“This one especially,” Laurel admits, her hand curving around the span of her stomach, thumb brushing against along the space there, a gesture tinged with so much affection that it sets a desperate tugging in his chest, heavy and wanting. “If I had any doubt he was yours, the way I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to vomit in the middle of a three hour status conference would’ve convinced me.”

He laughs, thickly. “Another thing for me to be sorry about, huh?”

“No,” Laurel assures him, hand lingering over her middle like she’s reluctant to move her hand away, break contact with their child. “No, it was a terrible conference. I was glad to get out of there for five minutes.”

“That's that case with Judge Muir right?” it shocks him, again and again, like an old injury constantly getting reaggravated, how so little time has passed since Laurel left, how little has really changed between them; he still knows her cases, the ones that frustrate her, the ones that make her reconsider her job, the ones that remind her why she became a lawyer in the first place. So little has changed in the past two and a half weeks, and yet everything has.

Laurel nods. “Highlight of my damn week.”

“I’d offer to buy you a drink,” he tells her, grinning crookedly. “But considering the circumstances…”

She grins thinly, rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, thanks, I’ll take a rain check.”

“How bout I buy you dinner instead?”

Laurel stiffens suddenly, freezes, her eyes wide. She blinks at him, eyebrows pulling together. “I’m not sure that's a good idea,” she tells him slowly, voice laced with caution.

“Laurel,” he begins. “I’m not asking that we pick up where we left off, pretend like nothing happened. It's just dinner.”

Her mouth twists like she wants to retort with something cruel, but he can see her swallow the thought. “It's not just dinner.”

“Yeah,” he tells her, desperately trying to resist the desire to slide into the booth next to her, take her into his arms, rest his own hand atop the one that still protects her stomach. “It is if we want it to be. It doesn't have to be anything more.”

“I think we both want it to be more though,” she says hesitantly, teeth sinking into her lower lip, her eyes drilling a hole into the table between them.

He nods. “Probably. But let's just have some pizza and see where things go, ok?”

“Ok,” she lifts her eyes to him, smiles, small and sharp and light, something heavy leaving her limbs, her bones like she’s letting go off all her anger, her fear. “Ok, let's have dinner. We’re getting jalapeños, mushrooms and pepperoni.”

“I love you,” he tells her, simply, frankly, something thrilling in his blood when he sees her shocked expression, the smile she simply can't contain, when he realizes she isn't going to flinch away, isn't going to draw herself back, try to let the booth swallow her at his words. “But we’re definitely not.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been the worst week guys, we're in the darkest timeline. This chapter, surprisingly, is not.

He gets a call the following Thursday, the day before Laurel’s appointment. It's a number he recognizes, but not a call he’s expecting, and it takes him a long moment staring at the screen before he summons the courage, the stillness in his bones to pick up.

“Michaela?” he asks, trying to keep the panic from his voice. She can only be calling because somethings happened, something horrible, the thing he’s feared most. His stomach drops, his chest tightens and it's all he can do not to hang up on her, all he can do to keep breathing.

“Frank,” she replies, voice clipped and oh so polite, so perfectly Michaela. She’s thawed somewhat towards him, or she had before this, before the almost baby, before he messed up the perfect life he had. “I shouldn't be calling, but…”

“What happened?” he cuts her off because he doesn't care that Laurel told her not to call except that means that Laurel is alive, is present and aware enough to tell Michaela not to contact Frank, and that's something. Not much, but it's something. “Is she ok?”

Michaela scoffs and he knows her eyes roll at him. “This concern would have been great three weeks ago, Frank,” she mutters. “Before Laurel colonized my guest room because you were an asshole about the baby.

“Michaela,” he says, tries to growl, tries to sound threatening so that she will tell him what he needs to know; if Laurel is ok, if their child is ok. Instead his voice emerges choked and desperate, practically pleading, begging for her to give him answers.

“She’s fine Frank, I promise,” Michaela tells him. “Or she was an hour ago when she called to say she’d be working late,” there's a long pause that echoes over the line, a sigh of reluctance before she continues. “The baby too.”

“Then what…”

She cuts him off. “I’m calling to warn you, threaten you, whatever you want to call it. Fix it Frank. I love Laurel like a sister, and her baby better be my godchild or so help me…” she trails off and silence echoes once again across the line for long seconds. “But you need to fix this. Get on your knees and beg until she takes you back.”

“I’m trying,” he assures her, promises her.

“Try harder,” Michaela snaps. “I really don't know what she sees in you, I really don't get it at all, because God, you're…” she trails off again and Frank imagines Michaela shaking her head, pursing her lips before she says more, says something she regrets. “But you make her happy and she wants to have this baby with you, so get yourself together, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Good,” she says and Frank can imagine her brisk nod over the phone, see her mentally check him off her list. “Because my apartment is amazing and I really don't want a baby ruining it.”

“You’re really doing a good job selling me on that god mother spot,” he quips, hears her quick laugh.

“Bye Frank,” she says, laughing before the dial tone sounds over the line. “It was a pleasure as always.”

  
The next day he’s neck deep in phone records for one of Annalise’s cases, needing to sort through them so she can have them for use at trial on Monday. At 3:30 though, he gets up, shuffles into her office.

“Hey,” he tells her when she finally looks up from her case files, glares at him. “I gotta head out for a bit. Laurel’s got a thing, for the baby, and she wants me to go. I can come back later if you need me, or I can work on the records over the weekend.”

“I need you here,” Annalise tells him, attention already going back to her files.

“Yeah,” he replies. “I know. But she and my kid need me more. I’ll get it done afterwards.”

Annalise raises her eyes, eyebrows climbing high. “Do you want a damn job when you get back here?”

Frank startles, takes a quick step back while he calms his breathing. “I wouldn't mind, but they’re more important. If I’ve gotta choose between going and keeping my job, I’m gonna head out.”

Annalise scowls, flips a few pages impatiently. “Bring some dinner back with you and you might keep working here.”

Frank smirks. “What d’you want me to pick up?”

“Just get Chinese,” she instructs him. “Not China Wok.”

“No problem boss,” he tells her. “I’ll swing by Chen’s.”

She ignores him and he slips out of the house, waving to Bonnie as he goes. She rolls her eyes at him as he sticks his tongue out. It's disgusting, he thinks, how happy the simple idea of seeing Laurel, maybe getting to get another glimpse of his kid makes him. 

He hasn't seen her since that night at Carla’s, but they’ve texted nearly every day and even talked once or twice on the phone. Three times. They’ve talked three times. Late at night when Laurel’s voice is husky and slow with sleep, when she laughs, rough and still light, at every dumb joke he makes, when she reluctantly admits that there’s maybe a chance their child is a girl instead, but that it doesn't matter because their child can play with dolls or trucks or all of the above. Twice now on these phone calls he’s heard the catch in her throat, the quick intake of breath when he addresses their child, tells their tiny almost person who Frank isn't even sure has ears yet about some weird strange thing he encountered that day, some thing that made him think of their kid. It's the highlight of his day, his week, his everything.

He walks to the appointment; it's actually not that far from Annalise’s office, just across the law school campus at the teaching hospital. Laurel’s there already, sitting slumped and bored in a hard plastic chair in the waiting room, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the muted TV playing some kind of cooking show.

She looks up as he enters, nods but doesn't smile until he sinks down into the chair beside her, the corners of her mouth pulling upwards as she sees him enter, approach and sit.

“Wasn't sure you’d make it,” she says, angling her body so that her knee brushes against his, so their elbows almost knock. “Bonnie texted to warn me it was all hands on deck since you go to trial on Monday.”

“I told you I’d be here,” he tells her, crossing his own arms over his chest, giving her a little shrug. “Wouldn't miss it for anything. You an T-Rex are most important.”

She gives him another almost smile. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says before turning her eyes back to the TV, though she continues to keep her body angled into his, like her mind still considers them a unit.

“Me too,” he tells her. “Much better than looking through phone records.”

She huffs, rolls her eyes. “She’s gonna make you go through jail mail too, huh? Punish you for skipping out?”

He scowls. “Probably.”

“Weekend work?”

He nods. “As long as she doesn't make me come into the office, I can live with it. Order plenty of takeout, put the game on, knock out the phone records.”

Laurel hums, glances off to the side at a woman, one hand resting atop her swollen belly as she scrolls through her phone, bored. “If I, uh, if I came by Saturday, would that be ok?”

He looks over at her sharply.

“I’ve got some weekend work I need to crank out too,” she tells him quickly, her tone reserved like she’s holding herself at bay, refusing to allow emotion to creep into her voice, her eyes still refusing to meet his. “I got drafted to help with an appeal and the brief’s due to the Superior Court on Monday. I've probably got to go back in after this to work on it a little with the attorney who handled the trial.”

Frank nods, gives her a lopsided grin. “Annalise instructed me to pick up food or I’m pretty sure I’m fired.”  
Her eyebrows quirk. “That's actually a good idea.”

“Come with me,” he tells her. “After this, we can get food together. Pretend it's a date, but then we wind up eating with other people, later, at our offices.”

She laughs quickly, rolls her eyes. “Let me think about it, ok?”

“Come over on Saturday,” he tells her then, trying to resist the urge to each out, let his fingers slide against the bare skin of her arm, to tangle his fingers with hers. It's been so damn long since he really touched her, really felt her body against his and he craves it, craves her with a longing that’s almost painful. “I’ll share my takeout if you don't mind watching a grown man throw highlighters around his living room in frustration.”

She laughs quickly, rolls her eyes at him. “I've seen worse. From you specifically.”

He smirks a little, inclines his head towards her. “Gotta start shaping up before the kid gets here. Try to set a good example and all that.”

“Noble of you,” she quips and her eyes roll again, but he can see the beginnings of a smile pull at the corner of her mouth, tentative and pleased.

Laurel’s name is called before he can say anything further and they’re brought back into a little exam room filled with charts and pictures of tiny, smiling babies. He tries not to look at them, tries not to imagine his own maybe-child, dark haired and blue eyed and serious, always a serious baby. Laurel may be convinced they’re having a boy, but Frank, Frank knows they’re having a serious, somber child. He thinks too, it will someday have Laurel’s quick, flashing humor, her unexpected sarcasm, but first, a disarmingly serious baby.

Laurel hops up on the exam table, Frank sinking down into another uncomfortable plastic chair as the receptionist instructs them to wait for the doctor.

“You want me to step out, just give the word,” he tells her, hand running over his beard. “I’m all in, but only when you want me.”

“I want you here,” she assures him, voice leaving no room for argument, for negotiation.

He nods. “I want to be here too.”

She smiles softly, eyes distant and she swings her legs slightly off the edge of the exam table, kicking at the air. He reaches over, pushes lightly on her knee, lopsided grin on his face. She rolls her eyes, kicks out at him, though stops before her foot connects with his body. His hand darts out, captures her ankle in his fingers, tugs against her foot, lets his fingers brush against the skin of her calf.

There’s a little thrill of desire that shoots through him, a little spark of wanting at the lazy grin that slides onto her face, at the matching look of wickedness in her eye. He wants her, wants her always, there is not a moment when that wanting lessens, like a craving he can never sate, a thirst he can never slake.  
But then the door cracks open and Frank drops his hand from her leg, Laurel tucking her legs tight together against the edge of the exam table as the doctor walks in.

“Laurel,” the doctor says as she enters, clipboard in hand. “Good to see you again. How’re you feeling.”

She looks up, spots Frank sitting in the corner like a little boy and he can see her eyebrows raise slightly, swing over to Laurel, a question in her glance. He wonders what Laurel had to say at the last appointment, how she dealt with his absence when he failed to show, when he ran away.

The doctor, middle aged though her jet black hair is already streaked with grey, recovers quickly, sticks her hand out to Frank. “I don't think we met last time. I’m Dr. Singh.”

“Frank,” he says, sticking his own hand out, shaking hers. “I’m…I’m the dad, I guess.”

“You guess?” she asks, one eyebrow quirking wryly as she tries to keep her mouth from pulling into a grin. Her eyes swing again to Laurel, a carefully neutral expression on her face.

“I am,” Frank answers. “The dad.”

Laurel nods and Dr. Singh hums slightly. “We missed you last time,” she says, voice carefully neutral.

“I…I’m gonna be here from now on,” he assures her, assures Laurel.

“Good,” the older woman says crisply, nodding once, eyes swinging to Laurel as though getting confirmation, reassurance, before moving back to her chart. “Feeling alright then Laurel?”

Laurel rocks back, leans back on her hands, kicks her legs against the table again. “Yeah, not too bad.”

Dr. Singh gives her a pointed look, nails tapping lightly against the clipboard. “Didn't we agree last time that you shouldn't try and pretend everything’s fine when it's not. So, how’re you really feeling? Still nauseous? Tired? Any headaches, backaches?”

“All of the above,” Laurel says, shrugging casually.

“How often have you been getting sick?”

“Today or…?” Laurel trails off.

“Every day?”

She nods, glances away like she’s guilty. “Usually only once or twice.”

There’s a short discussion about Laurel’s morning sickness, ensuring she’s able to keep things down, doesn't get dehydrated. Frank is ignored completely, which is fine with him, because it allows him to listen, to commit things to memory, to ensure he knows what to look out for if Laurel becomes unable to keep things down, knows ways he can ease the nausea that churns through her bones. He hope she lets him, hope she lets him make things easier for her, take some of the burden, share what he can of the task of shepherding their child into the world.

But more than that, it allows him to know, it allows him access to the things he’s been closed off from by his own fear, his own choices. If he hadn't been a coward, he would know how often Laurel’s been getting sick in the morning, he would know that she thinks oranges and onions now smell rotten, that her back has been killing her for days. If he hadn’t let himself run away, if he hadn't retreated from this child in fear, he’d still be a part of this, part of her life, and he’d know, would probably be holding her hair back and making her decaf tea to settle her stomach and kneading the knots out of her shoulders, her spine.

But instead he’s clueless, instead he’s left waiting to hear the answers she gives to the doctor, to a stranger, instead he learns of these things third hand. He hates it, hates the guilt, the anger, the self-loathing that claws it's way into his chest. He doesn't want to learn these things in a doctor’s appointment, he wants to see them first hand, wants to experience them with Laurel, wants to do what he can to make them better. He doesn't want Michaela to toss her a packet of Saltines and kick her out of the bathroom with a roll of her eyes, he wants to rub circles into her spine until the nausea passes, make jokes about their kid already being a troublemaker. He wants to be a part of this, of their child, not some spectator who is allowed in only by chance.

There’s more discussions he doesn't really understand, things about tests Laurel will need, blood tests and something they’ll do with the ultrasound. He may not understand it, but he knows it's necessary, knows it's needed to ensure their child’s healthy, developing. He kind of zones out through Dr. Singh’s long list of questions to Laurel, through her blood pressure test and drawing her blood, only glances up when Laurel hisses as the needle digs into her arm, holds her eyes while she pointedly refuses to look at the blood being taken from her arm.

He perks up when the doctor starts talking about the ultrasound, something to not only check their kid’s growth, but to make sure there’s no weird genetic abnormalities. He can't even let himself think about that, think about the terrible nightmares that creep into his mind in his darkest moments, the terrible punishments he imagines will be unleashed on his child in retribution for Frank’s own sins. He forces his mind away from those thoughts, doesn't let them gain any power. If there is something wrong, he will face it, he and Laurel will face it, together, but not before its required of him, he will not invite disaster in.

So he lets himself smile back at Laurel instead, tells himself to think instead about the last ultrasound photo, the little bean of a child in the blurry photo, thinks about seeing his child again, thinks about only good things, lets himself hope instead of fear.  
Dr. Singh snaps on a pair of latex gloves, urges Laurel to lean back on the exam table. She unbuttons the bottom few buttons on her blouse, pushes the material to the side to expose her stomach.  
As she does, Frank startles, gasps, before he swallows it down because he knows it's too early to see anything, knows it's too early for Laurel to really be showing at all, but he can't convince himself he doesn't see it, a new curve to the flat of her stomach, the beginnings of a swell that will shelter their child, a slight change in her body, a shift in the flat plane that already hints at the secret she holds inside herself, the growing existence nestled below her heart that will someday grow until it can't be ignored, until it becomes its own wonderful, startling, thrilling existence.

Laurel looks up at him, blinks, her eyes wide, something shining in them like tears, echoing his own. She smiles slowly, thick like syrup but distantly too, as though she’s listening to something far off, something only she can hear, some connection she has to this small, still forming child.

Dr. Singh must sense whatever it is that’s brewing between them, the moment that settles thick on their shoulders, like a fog, because she coughs, rips his and Laurel’s eyes away from each other, back to her, back to the task at hand. “You can sit closer to Laurel, Frank,” she tells him gently, like she’s urging him on. “You’ll see the screen better if you do.”

Frank complies meekly, scoots his chair closer to the exam table as Dr. Singh squirts a generous glob of thick looking clear gel on her stomach. Laurel grimaces as she does, gives a little snort of embarrassment and swings her eyes back to Frank.

He stands, positions himself by her shoulder so he can best see the screen. He wants to take her hand in his, wants to get his body as close to hers as he can. He wishes too, that they were alone for this, that there wasn't this stranger, this doctor present the first time he and Laurel see their child together. But he knows it will be that way until they can take their child home, until they have it in their arms, fully formed and whole. He knows he needs to get used to having other people present for the moments that matter, the little stolen moments that he gets to spend with his child for the next seven months. Yet he still wishes it could just be the three of them, him and Laurel and the minuscule collection of him and her and something wholly its own that is slowly forming itself into their child, wholly unique and perfect and wonderful, wishes they could just experience these moments alone with her.

He doesn't take her hand though, only pulls half as close as he really wants to. He’s unsure Laurel will allow it; although they’ve talked, are talking, and she’s allowed him back into her life, their child’s life, to the extent that she’s comfortable with, the extent that she thinks she can trust him, but he’s still not sure where the lines are, where her boundaries lay, where the traps and pitfalls are that will get him sent back to the wilderness.

The Doctor pushes a little plastic wand through the glob of gel, spreading it over the plane of Laurel’s stomach as she flicks the ultrasound machine on, pulling up a grayscale imagine that flickers with what looks like snow, shifts and changes and looks like the surface of the moon, far off and alien and unknowable.

And then suddenly, the static shifts and there’s something solid, something discernible to the image, something that hints at a pattern, a presence within the vast expanse of emptiness.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, i'm still depressed as hell about this season, cause it makes no damn sense, but now at least i have the hiatus to write fics that continue to ignore cannon...  
> And maybe a few that don't...maybe.

He can make out a head, large and heavy and out of proportion with its smaller, curved body, nearly wrapping around itself like a tadpole. It's ugly, god it's an ugly thing, some strange reptilian thing with bugging eyes and curving flipper hands and a little clubbed tail. He’s not so far gone that he can't recognize how objectively ugly this little creature is. And yet, well, he doesn't mind at all, doesn't think he’s seen anything more beautiful. 

Because he knows, deep within his bones, deep in his heart, knows that someday this will no longer be a twisted little fish creature, will likely be a fully formed human, actual and real, someday, with two arms and two legs and ten fingers and a nose that might be his and might be Laurel’s and maybe his hair and maybe her ears and her laugh and her chin and thoughts and fears and likes and wants that are wholly, wholly thrillingly and confoundingly its own.

And there’s a sound, a whooshing, thumping, pulsing noise like rushing water, quick and sharp and it takes far, far longer than it should before it dawns on him that it's the sound of his child’s heartbeat, rapid and fluttering and Frank’s throat catches hard in his throat, like he can barely breathe, like there's a stone or a peach pit lodged where his Adam's apple once was, trapping the air deep in his chest.

Laurel makes a little hiccuping noise, though Frank is unable to tear his eyes away to confirm that there are tears running down her face he recognizes the sound as a sob.

They’re both silent, both engrossed in the screen in front of them, both transfixed by the image of their child. But then Frank feels a pressure against his wrist, feels Laurel’s hand slip into his, feels her fingers brush against his and he tangles them together, tightening his hand around hers. He strokes his thumb over her knuckles, feels the thrum of her pulse under her skin, quick and rapid with fear, with love, with hope.

He loves her, for giving this to him, this moment, for letting him be a part of this moment, of this child, loves her for getting to witness it at all, have a hand in forming this strange, miraculous new creature, loves Laurel for getting to do it with her.  Frank knows he wouldn't want it with anyone else, wants to tell her, wants to let her know that he wouldn't want this, this child with any other person, but with her, he wants it so badly it aches, wants it so badly he can barely breathe. I love you, he wants to plead with her, beg her not to shut him out, not to let him be cowardly and walk away.  He loves her, loves their child, loves them both so much, never meant to hurt either of them, but he was stupid and cowardly and didn't realize what he was missing out on, didn't realize how amazing it could be.

She squeezes his hand, a quick firm pressure and he thinks that maybe Laurel knows, knows his fears and his hopes and his dizzying fierce love, thinks she gets it, thinks something similar echoes in her heart.

Dr. Singh points out various parts of their child, arms and nose and mouth, measuring the size of their little nearly person, it's head, something in the back of its neck that would hint at whether things are developing correctly. Everything looks fine, they’re told, everything looks perfect.

A breath he didn't know he was holding gets let out and Frank passes his free hand over his face, through his beard, scrubs it's across his chin. When he drops his hand it's wet, and he blinks rapidly down at his palm, realizes that there are tears streaking down his cheeks. He hears Laurel’s shaky breath too, wet and thick and though her face is turned away from him, turned towards the screen, he can see the wide expanse of her smile, stretching until it threatens to split his face apart. He wants to run his thumb under her eye, wipe the tears from her eyelids because even though they both are, even though she’s crying from happiness, from something like joy, like awe, it still makes his heart plummet to see her cry, still makes something sink in his stomach.

But he can't, because she's not really his anymore. He doesn't know what she is, but he knows Laurel’s not his girlfriend anymore, not yet. They're having a child together, there's a small, minuscule part of him inside her, projected up on the black and white screen, and yet he has no claim on her, no right to touch her body. They are no longer anything to each other, not really, the only point of connection the little maybe person that lurks inside her. That might change and it might not, but for now, no matter his desire, his wanting to do so, he can only take what contact Laurel gives him, what she allows him.

“Do you two want some printouts?” the doctor asks them, soft voice cutting through Frank’s thoughts. She smiles knowingly at Frank, at Laurel below him, at their joined hands and shared tears and Frank thinks that maybe there’s half a chance of things because Dr. Singh has finally lost that cautious, distant look when she speaks to him, like she no longer worries he’s going to walk out, leave Laurel alone and shocked and crying tears that are anything but happy.

Frank nods quickly. “Yeah. Please.”

Dr. Singh turns back to the screen. “Some extras for your family too?”

“Um, yeah, I guess,” Laurel says distantly and he knows the smile locked onto her face has slipped, become a grimace. He knows she hasn't told any of her family about the baby, would stake his life that she hasn't even spoken to them since she found out about the maybe child hidden inside her, not even the brother she loves best, and certainly not the parents she hardly ever speaks to, because he knows Laurel and he knows she won't know what to say, how to say it, will avoid having to say anything at all. 

And God, God, it's his fault, isn't it, always his fault, because they were supposed to be a family, him and her and now this new creature, this maybe child that they created, willed into being from nothing. They were supposed to be a fucking family, a family of choice that they built out of love and want and hope. A family that could make her forget the one she was born into, her ruthless, vicious father and the mother that never really wanted her, never really _could_ want her, make her forget all the things they had taught her about what being a family meant. And then he fucked it up, ruined it because he was scared and he was guilty and he didn't think about her at all, about what being left behind, abandoned would do to her. He didn't think about how she’d never had anyone truly care for her, truly want her, didn’t think about the deep, deep well of hurt, of pain she still carries from that horrible summer when she was sixteen and her father made it clear he cared more about his money than he did about his daughter, and Frank, well Frank had promised he’d be different, that he wasn't like her father, her mother, and then he proved just how much a liar he’d been, just how false his words were. 

And he’ll spend the rest of his life making it up to her, if she’ll let him, spend the rest of his life proving that she's worth it, that he wants her, craves her, loves her with a passion that borders on desperation, that he’ll never stop, never falter in his devotion to her, to their child. He’ll do it gladly because he let her down when she needed it most, wasn't the man she thought he was, the man he promised her he'd be. He promised her a family, promised her that they’d create something unbreakable, give any children of theirs all the things she never had. And then he failed her.

“You’ll need one for your mom, right?” she asks once she smoothes the grimace from her lips, her voice light and calm though he hears a lingering note like sadness, like grief behind her words, one that he thinks he detects only because he knows her so well, so thoroughly, even now.

He nods again, wishes he could tell her the things his mom, his old man said to him about Laurel, about their fierce, complete love for her, about how they refused to walk away from her, from their grandchild no matter what Frank chooses. He will, someday, because she deserves to know, deserves to know just how fully she is loved. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Just a couple extra then,” Laurel decides, her voice still flat.

Dr. Singh nods briskly, wisely not dwelling on Laurel’s sudden distance. “I’ll be sure to get some good shots for you. Let you impress your friends.”

Laurel snorts and the dark cloud that's settled around her eases.

She hits a few buttons and a line of black and white pictures spits out from the machine. As she does, Frank leans over to

Laurel, speaks low in her ear so that it's only the two of them who can hear. “I already promised Bonnie I’d show her the new shots of the little bean. She’s gonna be spoiling him rotten before we know what's happened.”

Laurel’s smile is slow and soft, her eyes tender and he’s drowning in the affection he sees in them. “Michaela too. She’s already been trying to take me shopping for onesies and cribs and, I dunno, strollers. She’s halfway to planning where he’s going to college too.”

“Princeton, I assume?” Frank quips. “Or was she willing to consider Yale?”

Laurel smiles wider, squeezes his hand. “At least Princeton’s close by. She insisted he’d need to go to an Ivy.”

“Technically, I’d get a discount if we sent the kid to Middleton,” Frank points out. “Annalise figured out how to put me and Bonnie on staff.”

She chuckles, rolls her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Just gotta keep working for her for the next eighteen years.”

Dr. Singh hands them the printouts then and he and Laurel divvy them up equally, pouring through them intently, heads close together, comparing minuscule differences in the angles, the position of their child’s limbs. He insists that Laurel let him have the one where it almost looks like their kid’s flicking off the camera; he knows there’s nothing remotely like fingers yet, but it still looks remarkably like he’s giving a nice one finger salute. He can’t quite decide whether to keep it or give it to Bonnie and Laurel’s eyes roll with sharp edged affection when he tells her his plans.

Eventually though, Laurel’s told she can wipe off the gel, button her shirt again and head out. She gives a look he can't interpret at their still joined hands, drops Frank’s fingers with what he can only describe as reluctance, frowning as she does.

Frank grabs her a wad of tissues, passing them over silently and watches with a small, almost smirk as Laurel grimaces, swipes at the remnants of the gel.

“If you're flinching about this,” he teases, handing her another bundle of tissues with a grin he can't suppress. He shouldn't be quite so giddy about the thought of years of shit and vomit and smeared food and snot and exhausted, sleepless nights, he really, really shouldn't, but somehow the idea of doing it with Laurel, of being with her through every terrible, frayed edged moment, of facing things together, well, it takes his future from what would have been the stuff of nightmares just a few years ago, to something he almost looks forward to, the challenge, the great unknowable. “Just wait till we're up to our eyes in shit and baby food.”

She grimaces again, though this time it's laced through with affection, throws the wad of tissues away before she buttons her shirt over her stomach, disguising the beginnings of the subtle swell Frank still swears he can make out.

“Little too late to be regretting your impending shit and baby food trial by fire,” Dr. Singh quips, throwing what can only be described as a conspiratorial glance towards Frank.

He grins back, he can't help it, and he’s glad he’s off her shit list, for the moment at least, glad he's managed to prove himself to her somehow.

“I’m not regretting anything,” Laurel tells them both, expression unconcerned. “That's why I have you Frank.”

His grin spreads wider, because even if he spends all his time changing diapers and wiping sticky hands and faces, Laurel is at least imagining him in her life, in their child’s life. Frank will not be exiled to Siberia in Laurel’s scenario, she’s allowing him to be a part of this, a partner in this baby. And well, that's all he’s asking for, all he wants, diapers and runny noses and sleep deprivation and all. He takes her hand before he can help himself, before he can think better of it, runs his thumb across her knuckles for just a brief moment. Her eyes widen for a moment in what he decides is shock before the spark with tenderness, with gratitude.

And then Dr. Singh interrupts again with a little cough that tries to be polite. “I should have your test results back in about a week. I normally don't call if everything looks good, but would you still prefer I call regardless?”

Laurel nods, eyes suddenly shuttered, cautious, like she’s thrown a wall up between herself and the rest of the world. He can see the tension in her mouth, in the curve of her shoulders, like she’s bracing herself for a hit, for an attack. He gives her a little enquiring glance but her eyes refuse to meet his, fixed on a point somewhere near the doctor’s left foot.

He wants to ask her about it, her sudden shift in mood towards something like fear, like guilt, wants to ask if maybe she’s more scared than she lets on, more worried about what the future has in store for them with this child. He wonders if maybe she has some of the same fears he has churning in his bones, the same fear that her own sins, her past misdeeds will come back to rest on their child, that the punishment she feels she deserves will be meted out instead on their undeserving child.

He wants to ask her, but not here and not while her eyes are still distant and filled with something like shame. He thinks perhaps there’s more that they will need to talk over, more they will need to do to ensure they can be the people they need to be for their child, that they’re not still entangled in guilt and and lingering fear, that they're not living in the past and unable to truly focus on their future, together and with this almost child.

“Perfect,” Dr. Singh says brightly, startling Frank from his thoughts. “I made a note in your chart last time, but I like to confirm so I don't annoy you with calls if you don't actually want them.”

Laurel smiles thinly. “Thanks.”

“I’ll want to see you in another four weeks or so,” Dr. Singh tells them. “Make sure everything's still going well.”

Laurel nods again. “Sure.”

“Any questions?”

She shakes her head, eyes still fixed on the floor.

“Frank?”

“Laurel thinks we’ve got a boy in there,” he says, giving her a little nudge with his shoulder, an encouraging look, hoping she’ll raise her eyes. “We gonna get to prove her right next time?”

Dr. Singh laughs and even Laurel lets the corners of her lips pull into a small, closed mouthed smile. “Time after, at the 20 week appointment.”

“Wanna hazard a guess though?” Frank asks. “Whether Laurel’s onto something? In your expert opinion.”

Her eyes swing between Frank and Laurel for a moment, gaze shrewd and lips pursed. “Honestly? I've been doing this fifteen years now and I’ve long given up guessing. I’m never right.”

“So guess anyway,” Frank says with a shrug. “We’ll just assume you're wrong.”

Again, there's that slow look between the two of them, like she’s testing the waters, the currents of emotion arcing between Frank and Laurel. Finally she speaks. “I’m with Laurel, I think. I’m gonna go with boy.”

Frank grins wide and Laurel lets her eyes raise a few inches as a smile peaks across her face. “Tolja,” she mumbles at him.

“Guess that means I gotta be on my own in the girl camp,” Frank says shrugging. “Doesn't mean I won't be proven right though.”

Laurel snorts, returning his nudge of her shoulder with her own. “Doesn't, but you’re still wrong.”

“That's the thing about babies,” Dr. Singh says, pulling the door open and letting them step through. “Only a matter of time before one of you gets proven right.”

He waits while Laurel makes another appointment with the receptionist for the following month, gives her a wide, grateful smile when she raises her eyebrows in question at him when she’s offered another Friday afternoon appointment, making sure it will work for him as well, will be something he can attend.

And when they leave the office, step out into the hallway, Frank allows himself to let his hand rest against the small of her back, settle there when Laurel doesn't flinch at his touch. They get to the elevator and Frank realizes that this is where he leaves her, where they will naturally go their separate ways. Unless he does something to delay it, to keep Laurel beside him for a few moments longer.

“You thought any about coming for food with me?” he asks, leaning slightly into her body, curving his spine, his shoulders near to her. “Pick up Chen’s before you bury yourself in work for the next six hours.”

Laurel smiles softly, steps forward into his body and slides her hand into his. She presses her cheek against his chest and Frank has to smother the urge to never let her go, to keep her pressed against him until they both grow old and die. “Thank you for coming today.”

“Of course,” he tells her, letting his free hand come up to tangle against her hair. “I meant it when I said there wasn't anywhere else I wanted to be. Thank you for asking me to come.”

He can feel the twist to her mouth at his words. “Of course I asked you to come. You're his father.”

“I am,” he agrees. “But you didn't have to.”

“Of course I did,” she insists, swallows hard and steps back, looks up at Frank. When she speaks her voice is thick and firm. “I want…I want what we talked about when we imagined this, when we imagined having a kid together. I don't want to do this alone, or split the baby with you. I want us to be together, you and me and him.”

He nods, keeps their hands tangled. “I want that too. You know I do.”

“I’m not there yet, ok?” she says softly, eyes darting away like she’s afraid of his reaction, like she no longer trusts herself to guess at his reaction. “But I’m getting there. Soon, I think. I meant it when I said I’d need you to prove yourself. And you are.”

“And I am,” he echoes. “And I will. Whatever you need. Whatever either of you need.”

“Ok,” she nods, stepping back and turning to the elevator, though she keeps their hands together, tangled tight and he watches a smile, small and bright, crack across her face. “Ok. Good.”

“But what about Chinese?”

“Yeah,” she tells him, smile growing wider, even brighter. “I don't give a shit about Chinese, but I don't think I can walk away from you quite yet.”

“Good,” he tells her. “Don't then. And if you feel like coming by tomorrow, I’d love the company. Better yet, come over and don't leave.”

“Maybe,” she says slowly as the elevator stops for them, slides open. “Let's take it a day at a time ok. Just show me you mean it, Frank, show me you're done running.”

“I'm done running,” he tells her emphatically as they step onto the empty elevator. He draws her to him again, slips his hand against the nearly imperceptible curve of her stomach, over their tiny growing child. “I’m done running from you or from this child. No matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna face it, whatever it is, whatever comes.”

Laurel smiles and covers his hand with hers and they stay like that, the three of them, together, for moments that seem like both hours and seconds and he thinks that maybe things will be alright, eventually, as long as he has the two of them, Laurel and his maybe child, as long as they're willing to have him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The place you thought (worried? hoped? suspected?) this fic was going...it just went exactly there.  
> Sometimes I don't want to be expected/typical/tropey but sometimes I just gotta be. Sometimes i just can't not...

Everything is good. For a little while at least, everything is good. And then it gets better, like a wound healing. There are still little hurts, little moments that remind them of what came before; the night Frank was on a stakeout and forgot his phone in the car and Laurel called him five times before giving up, leaving a small scared voicemail he only heard hours later, after he’d dragged himself home, found her curled up in bed, hand across the growing swell of her stomach and sobs still slipping from her throat because she couldn’t reach him and they’d had a fight that morning, something small and petty, not even anything to do with the baby, but he hadn’t come home and she couldn’t reach him and she’d feared the worst.

There are moments when she hurts him too, when she’s tired and her back and shoulders and feet are aching and he knows that nothing in her closet really fits right anymore, their child expanding ever outward until its impossible to miss, until every time Frank looks at her his heart skips a beat because he can’t ignore the fact that the child inside her is real, and his and perfect, and Laurel comes home after a trial with Judge Kazinsky and snaps at Frank when he asks if she remembered to take the pre-natal vitamins, snaps that maybe he should just shut the fuck up because he abandoned her, abandoned their child for three weeks, so maybe skipping the goddamn vitamins is not the worst thing anyone’s done to their kid.

Things are good and things are better and sometimes things are worse, but time keeps slipping on and their child continues to grow, continues to creep closer, getting bigger and bigger and more like a human with every ultrasound they go to. When it comes down to it, Laurel insists on being surprised by the baby’s sex, but Frank catches the look Dr. Singh throws him sometimes, like she’s trying to let him in on a secret, and he thinks that Laurel’s probably right, that it’s a boy, a son, _their_ _son_.

And everything is good, for long, long months that fly by like seconds; he and Laurel get back to where they were, or close to it, close enough it makes no difference, and Frank even stops cursing himself every day for running away, for thinking it was smart, it was honorable to miss this, miss watching his child grow, miss watching Laurel grow with it, grow more beautiful, more gorgeous, more perfect with every day, until sometimes he can barely breathe for looking at her.

She was meant to be a mother, he thinks sometimes, forced to correct himself every time that thought creeps into his brain, because no, Laurel was meant to be any damn thing she wanted, and she wants this, wants this child, his child.

And yeah, everything is good and everything is better; they go to birthing classes and buy a crib and bottles and diapers and blankets and clothes, socks, hats so tiny Frank finds himself staring at them, uncomprehending, wondering endlessly how his child will ever be so small, so delicate, so fragile and yet, how it can still loom so large, how anything that was created from nothing can carry so much weight. They argue over names and whether Laurel should take eight or ten weeks of maternity leave, and still, everything is good, better, and Frank no longer wants to run, no longer even feels the urge to run.

Until he does.

He’s off grabbing discovery files from the DA’s office when he gets a call, a number he thinks he vaguely recognizes, a city number he thinks, maybe a beat cop he talked to once or twice, who did a favor for him, who he did a favor for.

He stares at it quizzically, answers anyway because well, he knows he’ll be waiting for a good twenty minutes for the boxes of files so he might as well answer, see if he can keep himself entertained for a few minutes.

“Yeah?” he answers, still half distracted by signing for the incoming files.

“Frank?” the voice on the other line asks, young, female and sounding, he thinks, worried or nervous. Maybe an informant, maybe a lead on something. “Frank Delfino?”

“Yeah,” he repeats. “Who’s this?”

“Liz,” the voice replies as Frank searches his brain for any Liz’s he knows. “Liz Maith. I work with Laurel.”

“What’s up then?” he asks because he vaguely recognizes Liz’s name and he knows Laurel’s office has been trying to schedule the annual holiday party, trying to get a handle on guests and plus ones and he and Laurel have been trying to figure out whether they even ought to go since it’ll be right before her due date and she can’t drink anyway and Frank only knows and handful of her coworkers.

There’s a long, long silence over the line, a sound like Liz is clearing her throat, a sound almost like a sob.

And Frank’s stomach drops. Because he thinks, _he_ _knows_ , this is the call he was dreading, the call he knew was coming, knew was coming from the first.

“Liz,” he commands sharply, when he can breathe around the tightness in his chest. “Tell me what happened.”

This is the call, Frank knows, the call he knew was coming, the disaster he knew, from the first, from the very first moment he realized what having a child would mean, was coming. Its too soon, too soon for him to be getting this call, for it to be anything other than disaster, than tragedy. They still have eight, no, no, closer to seven weeks until the baby’s due and its too soon, too soon to be getting this call.

And, he finally realizes, belatedly, he’s getting a call from Liz, from a coworker and not Laurel herself. Ice settles in his bones, settles around his heart, fear and terror and blind, blind panic.

Laurel isn’t calling him and some coworker he’s never met is, not even one of the couple of friends Laurel has in the PD’s office and though his brain feels like its fighting against a swift current, feels like he’s trying to swim through caramel, run up a hill made of sand, fighting against every instinct that tells him not to think, not to contemplate anything, to reject it utterly, he eventually realizes what that means.

It means Laurel can’t call him, not that she won’t, he knows that, knows she’d call him if there were any chance of it, any way to reach him. It means she’s not in a position to call him, means she’s not going with Beth or Fatima or even Jack, because they all have his number, means she’s going to the hospital with some stranger. It means its bad, means there’s no time, not anymore, means all the things he feared, all the things he told himself wouldn’t happen are happening, finally, the whole house of cards he’s constructed for himself crumbling into rubble, into dust, the lies he’s been telling himself for going on five months now exposed as the falsehoods they were, just things he told himself to keep the anxiety at bay, let himself sleep, breathe.

Liz makes that sobbing sound again, shaky and wet and Frank wants to scream at her, scream at her that she has no right to be upset, that if she knew what was good for her she’d hang up the phone and forget she ever called him, would swallow her words and leave him in peace, in ignorance. “She’s being taken to CHOP,” she tells him, voice shaking. “I dunno what happened, but, but there was a lot of blood.”

“Ok,” he breathes, heart pounding loud in his ears, barely able to hear Liz’s words. “Ok, CHOP.”

“Yeah,” she tells him. “I don’t, I don’t know anything else. But Nina went with her.”

“Nina,” he repeats distantly, mind slowing to a crawl, his breath sounding hard and fast in his ears. “Ok.”

“I’ll text you her number,” she says after a moment, prompting now, urging, like she realizes how little Frank is comprehending, like she’s talking to a small child, making sure he memorizes instructions. “Alright, Frank? I’ll text you Nina’s number, so you can call her? Find out what’s going on?”

“What?” he asks numbly, white noise and panic echoing loud in his ears, loud as screams.

He realizes he's holding the phone in his hand, staring down at it uncomprehending like it's suddenly turned into a snake, a bomb, a cup of coffee, stares at it like the whole world has been turned on its end.

He doesn't understand.

Everything was fine, six hours ago when he last saw her everything was fine and now, now he's getting a call from a stranger telling him there's blood and something terrible and the disaster he feared, the disaster he sensed deep in his bones has arrived, has come for him, for his child.

It lay in wait until he forgot about it, forgot about the terrible rage, the terrible punishment fate had in store for him, waited until he was at ease, until he was happy, until everything was perfect and he forgot the rot, the corruption in his bones, in his blood, in his very soul.

And now, now it comes to take everything he loves, everything he wants more than his own breath, everything he holds dear, everything he would destroy the world for.

He feels himself sink to the floor, legs collapsing from under himself, like his body cannot support the weight of his grief, of his fear.

If he loses Laurel, loses the baby what will he have, what worth will his life have?

He thinks of all the things Liz’s words can mean, blood and CHOP and seven weeks early, seven weeks too soon and can't think of anything else, can't thing of what he can do, what thing he can do, what promises he can make to stop this, to keep his punishment from being delivered to Laurel, to his child.

He can’t think, he can't think, he can't breathe.

If Laurel, if his child aren't breathing there's no point in Frank continuing to breathe either, no point to anything. If anything happens to either, he knows, suddenly, blindingly, he’s going to kill himself, because that’s the only way he can protect the people he loves from the things he carries inside himself. Except something already has, its already too late to protect them.  
And he's frozen, stopped in his tracks but he knows he should run, run to Laurel, to his baby, run away from this, just run so it stops hurting, so he doesn't feel his skin is splitting apart, his heart breaking, shattering into pieces too small to see, run so fast and so far he outlasts, outdistances the pain and fear and terror that's coursing through him with every beat of his heart.

He thinks he hangs up the phone, knows he races out to his car, forgetting completely the boxes of discovery he’s been ordered to procure.

He barely knows where he's going as he leaves the DA’s office, sees the sign for 676 out of the corner of his eye, leading towards Jersey and spends long blissful moments before sense returns to him imagining himself heading up Broad, getting on the highway and racing over the Ben Franklin Bridge, racing all the way down to Cape May, or even further, running, running and never stopping because stopping means facing this, facing what it means when Laurel’s coworker calls him and tells him there was blood, that she went to CHOP, that something happened and his child is going to emerge into the world seven weeks before its time.

Instead he turns at the last minute onto JFK, races across the river towards CHOP, towards his child, who might no longer be a child, might no longer be a hypothetical, races towards Laurel, towards all the things loves, all the things he lives for. He's running, always running, breath burning and legs aching, but this time he knows he cannot run away, knows he must face whatever comes.

He races into Admitting, breath coming in sharp pants like knives. “Castillo,” he sobs to anyone who will even look his way. “Laurel Castillo.”

A nurse steps towards the counter, slowly, like she’s not sure what to expect from Frank. He’s barely present enough to realize how he must look but he doesn’t care, can’t care, can’t seem to still his breathing, can’t figure out how to stop the sobs that pour from his throat. “What can I help you with sir?”

“I,” he begins, scrubs a hand across his face, scrubs the tears from his cheeks, tries to keep his voice low, level. “My girlfriend, my kid. I need to know where they are. I got a call they were here.”

“Who’s the patient?”

“Patient?”

“Yeah honey,” she tells him gently. “I need to know who the patient is, so I can tell you where they are. Who’re you here to see?”

“My girlfriend,” he repeats. “My kid.”

“Ok,” she says again, soft and slow like she’s trying to soothe him, reassure him but it just makes Frank’s breaths come faster, harder, make the ice in his heart expand further until all he feels is cold, cold dread. The woman peers at him again, mouth turning down in what he knows must be sympathy, wants to shout at her, shake her until he wipes it off her face. “Lets try your girlfriend first ok?”

Frank just nods, dumbly.

“You’re not married?” she asks, barreling on before he even answers. “I won’t be able to tell you anything honey, not unless she's given us permission to tell you anything. What about your kid? You on the birth certificate?”

“What?”

“For you child?” the nurse asks him gently. “To be able to get any information about your child, you need to be on the birth certificate, have a custody order, something.”

“What?” he whispers again, not understanding, not understanding what he’s doing here, leaning over a counter in CHOP, terrified, left terrified and blind, the two things he loves most taken from him. “I, no, no.”

“I’m sorry honey,” she tells him again. “I gotta get some kinda documentation for you or I can’t let you see your kid either.”

“I…no…she’s pregnant, and…”

“Alright,” she nods placatingly, sympathy lacing through her voice. “Alright, now. But I still can’t let you up. Not if you’re not married to the child’s mother. Not if she doesn’t tell me she wants you up.”

“That’s my kid,” he snaps, frustration coming to a head because no one can tell him a goddamn thing, no one can tell him what’s happened to Laurel, to his child. He doesn’t know anything and all he can think is that the worst has happened. “That’s my child,” he repeats, voice cracking, his voice a ragged whisper. “Please.”

“I can’t,” she repeats.

“That’s…no one’s telling me anything,” he begs, hands running through his hair, scraping against his scalp, wanting, suddenly and harshly, to tear himself open, tear himself open and expose his heart to this women, let her see that he has to, _has_ _to_ get to his child, get to Laurel, if he can, god, if he can he might be able to do something, anything, even if its only holding his child, holding Laurel’s hand, even if it doesn’t matter to anyone but him. “My kid’s up there and my girlfriend and no one will tell me anything, but its too early and if something happens and I’m not there…I can’t not be there…I can’t.”

“Is there anyone you can call honey? Someone who’s up there already?” the nurse asks him softly. “Could you try your girlfriend? Her family?”

“Nina,” he breathes. “I have Nina.”

She gives him a long, skeptical look, eyebrow raised and her mouth twisting. “You wanna try calling her then?” she prompts, reaching out and patting his hand. “Otherwise you’re just gonna have to sit here cause I can’t tell you anything. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

“Right,” he nods slowly, distantly, stepping away from the counter. “Right. Nina. Liz told me to call Nina.”

He takes his phone from his pocket, fingers fumbling like they’re three times their normal size, like his fingers have been replaced with blocks of ice, finds a text waiting for him with an unknown number, finds he has three missed calls from that same number; Nina, trying to call him.

He hits redial, waits while the line rings through for a long slow eternity.

“Frank?” a voice finally breathes over the line. “Frank, oh thank god, finally.”

“Yeah,” he sobs, relief and terror suddenly crushing, heavy, against his chest. “Yeah, its me. What’s…where’s Laurel? What, what’s going on?”

“CHOP,” Nina blurts out in a rush. “Liz was supposed to tell you, she’s at CHOP. The baby, you gotta get here Frank ok? They’re telling her the baby’s coming.”

“Where?” he demands. “Where is she? What room?”

“What…” she trails off voice distant, breath sounding heavy over the line, panicked. “I don’t, I don’t, ok…1417, 1417, ok Frank? You got that?”

“1417. Yeah,” he trails off, remembers what he’d been doing before he placed the call. Its like his life is a crudely drawn animation, skipping and jumping and disconnected, nothing making sense. The baby can’t come, not now, not yet, its too soon and they don’t have the car seat installed, and Laurel has a trial on Tuesday and they haven’t even settled on a name yet, Frank hasn’t even really begun to think of the creature in Laurel’s stomach as a child, as something that he’ll be able to hold in his arms and see and touch in mere weeks. Its too soon, seven weeks too soon, their child four, maybe five pounds now, far too tiny to be brought out of the shelter of Laurel’s body, brought into the harshness, the cruelness of the world. “No, no, they won’t let me up. Tell Laurel I’m here, please, tell them to let me up.”

“They won’t?” Nina trails off then sighs, long, huffs out a little sound of realization. “You’re not married, right. HIPAA laws. Ok, ok, I’ll figure it out. Where are you?”

“Admitting,” he tells her, stomach twisting because maybe, maybe he’s finally at the end of the line, maybe he will finally get to Laurel, to his child, maybe, finally get to his family. “I’m in Admitting.”

“Ok,” he can hear her nod over the line, hear her sharp intake of breath. “Ok, sit tight. I’ll figure it out. I’ll get you up here.”

“Wait,” he calls out, because Nina’s words sound like a goodbye, sounds like the end of the conversation. “Laurel? The baby? Are they…”

But the line is dead.

He stares at his phone again, wonders if he can, if he should, call back, stares at it, desperately hoping that something will happen, that he’ll somehow, through sheer force of his wanting, his desperation, learn whether Laurel, whether his child are alright, will be alright when all of this is finally, finally over.

“You alright?” the nurse asks him, hand soft at his elbow, leading him away from the desk, over to a long line of plastic chairs, guides him down into the chair, lets him collapse, sink against the plastic.

“Fuck,” he whispers, letting his body bow forward, hands carding through his hair. He’s close, so close to Laurel, his child, to his family, to where he needs to be. He’s so damn close and he’s a million miles away. And he’s terrified, hands shaking still with fear, with the heavy, pressing weight keeping him from anger, from rage at Liz and Nina and this fucking nurse and CHOP and HIPAA and everything in the universe that’s keeping him from Laurel and their baby. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Frank sees her feet shuffle along the linoleum. “You’ll be ok,” she tells him finally. “I know it’s scary right now. But whatever happens, it’ll all be over soon.”

“What if it’s bad?” he pleads. “What if all that happens is bad?”

The nurse’s voice, somewhere from far above him sighs. “There’s nothing in the world that’s all bad,” she assures him slowly, after a long, long moment. “Even the worst things, even things like babies dying, there’s always something good comes out of it. Might happen sooner, might take years, but even if the worst thing happens today, someday something good’ll come from it. You gotta trust that it will.”

“I don’t want something good to happen years from now,” he tells her still staring at her feet, trying to memorize the scuffs on the toes of her black sneakers. He doesn’t tell her that the reason they’re in this situation, the reason something horrible might happen, has already happened is because something terrible happened years ago, is coming back on him, to punish him now, years later. “I want my kid, I want _this_ baby. I want…I wanted _this_ good thing. Just this one thing.”

“I know honey,” she tells him. “I know you did, that you do.”

“Fuck,” he exhales again, feels tears dripping down his cheeks, falling heavy against his toes. “I just wanted this one good thing.”

“Its gonna get worse before it gets better,” she promises somberly. “No matter what happens today, even if you come away with the best possible outcome, it’ll get worse and then it’ll get better.”

He nods. “I know. Its gotten worse already.” He knows that no matter what happens, its going to get worse before it gets better, because if Nina’s saying the baby is coming, coming now, today, then its going to get much worse before it can ever hope to get better, because that means hours of pain and fear and struggle for Laurel, means hours of useless, gut churning tension and worry for him, hours of uncertainty before they know what it will mean that their child is coming now, today, seven weeks early in a tide of blood.

“Frank?” a new, lower voice calls out somewhere near his elbow.

He looks up, finds himself staring at a new nurse, or a doctor, scrub clad and solemn faced. “Yeah?”

“Your uh,” the young man begins, grins and looks, for a moment sheepish. “Laurel told me to come get you, bring you up.”

“Ok,” he breathes again, rises slowly to his feet, hand running across his face. He wants to run, desperately, the desire burning its way through his blood, wants to leave CHOP, leave the city, the state and never come back, never learn what horrible outcome this horrible day will have when its finally, finally over. He wants to run, wants to never look back at his life here, at Laurel, at his child, wants to pretend they don’t exist because it will be his fault if they will be hurt, if disaster settles, like gently falling snow, on their shoulders. Instead, he just mutely, blindly, unthinkingly follows the other man, out to the bank of elevators, up to the fourteenth floor, down to room 1417, leads him to his child, to Laurel, leads him to whatever cruel, terrible punishment is being handed down, delivered to the people he loves most as retribution for his sin, for his terrible crimes.

He wants to ask, wants to expose all the fears, the worry, the terror that lurk in his brain, wants to stop this man and question him until Frank knows, fully, what he will be facing, what horrible thing, what horrible odds he’s walking into, whether the outlook is better or worse, what he should expect. He wants to prepare himself, wants to take the punch here and not in front of Laurel, wants to get the worst of it out of the way now so he can be strong for Laurel, for their child, be what he needs to be to protect them, to keep them safe once he enters the hospital room. He’s just not sure he can, the words sticking like glue against his throat, his tongue.

The other man must sense it though, sense all the things Frank can’t bring himself to ask, because just as the near the room, he feels a gentle tug at his elbow, stilling him.

“I’m Jonah,” the other man says, again showing off that sheepish smile. “I, uh, I’m the surgical resident assigned to your…to Laurel. Dr. Singh’s been by, but once things got stabilized she, I guess she felt I could handle it.”

“Stabilized?” Frank echoes, because he doesn’t know what that means, not really, he only knows that to be stabilized it meant that Laurel, his child, were once _unstable_ and that means all the things he fears most, blood and slowing, stopped heartbeats and the things he knew were coming for them.

Jonah nods, one finger scratching slowly along the line of his jaw. “Yeah, uh, so I dunno how much anyone’s told you, probably not much. But things are ok now, or well,” he chuckles uncomfortably, almost self-deprecatingly. “They’re not perfect, but for now things are as good as they can be with the baby at 33 weeks.”

“What’s,” Frank begins, clenches his hands into fists to keep his hands, his voice from shaking because he’s not ready, his child isn’t ready for this, they were all supposed to have more time. “What’s going on? Why’re they even here.”

“Ok,” Jonah nods slowly, like its only just dawning on him how in the dark Frank is, how behind the eight ball. “Ok, right. So look, I want to preface this by saying again that things have been stabilized, that it’s not a perfect outcome, probably not the one you imagined for yourself, but I think you’ll be walking out of here with everyone you came with ok?”

Frank chokes back a laugh, a sob, because he fucking came here alone, came here with no one and he won’t, he can’t leave alone. He can’t.

“So Laurel has what’s called a placental abruption and…”

“No,” Frank shakes his head, insistent. “I don’t, I don’t care about that. Not now. What’s gonna happen? That’s what I want to know. What does it mean for her, for my kid.”

“Uh,” the other man begins, eyes widening slightly, giving Frank a little hitch of his shoulders. “Well uh, you’re gonna have your kid a little earlier than you thought. Bleeding was severe enough and her heart rate got a little wobbly, still is, so uh, Dr. Singh thought it best to deliver. We’re gonna have to do a C-section, because of the bleeding, so, uh, yeah.”

“C-section?” he repeats dumbly, because that wasn’t part of the plan. A C-section is not how Laurel planned things out, and she’s planned through everything, or close to it and god, she’s already bleeding and Jonah’s going to cut her open and, and…his brain simply stops, cannot move further down that line of thought because it heads to all the places he told himself he wouldn’t let his mind go. It goes to all the darkest places, darkest fears he’s kept at bay for close to five months now and he will not let them have control now, not when he needs to keep it together for Laurel, for his child.

“Yeah,” he nods slowly, gives Frank what might have been intended as a comforting smile. “Look, I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, no one wants to hear their partner’s having major surgery out of nowhere, but the outcome’s best if we do this. Get the baby out, make sure its healthy, let us focus on Laurel, so we can stop the bleeding, get her healthy too.”

“Laurel? Is she?” he can’t continue, can’t bear to ask all the questions he fears most. He can’t think about that, can’t think about bleeding, can’t think about what severe means and heart rates that don’t beat steady and true, that don’t beat at all. He can’t think about that because panic is rising through his chest and tightening like a noose around his heart and he can’t fucking think about all the terrible things that can happen, may have already happened or he won’t get through this. He won’t make it back from this, because its his fault, his fault, always comes back to the terrible things he did. He has to focus on the future, on running ever forward, on making it to a place where severe bleeding and stuttering hearts are a distant memory, make it to a place where the cold prickle of fear no longer arcs like lightening across his fingertips. He has to focus on making it past this fear, past these hours of disaster, focus on the end, whatever that may be.

“She’s stable, yeah,” Jonah answers, nods. “We got her on blood replacement for now and once the baby comes, we’ll take it from there but the outlook, it’s not bad. Bleeding’s pretty bad, but we’ll stop it.”

“And…”

“And the baby, yeah,” he grins that weird sheepish grin again, tugs on his ear. “Baby’s in less distress, which is good. Probably prefer not to be evicted for another couple weeks, but…,” he runs his hands through his hair, short and brittle. “Look, babies born at 33 weeks have about a 98, 99% chance of survival. I’m not telling you you might not be that 1-2%, but odds are what the odds are. Baby’ll probably have some breathing problems, everything’s happening too fast to give it a good steroid dose, help its lungs along, but that’s not insurmountable. Might have some feeding issues too and more than likely your kid’ll be spending a few nights in the toasters. But you still got a 98, 99% chance of walking out of here with a baby, one that may not be healthy at first, but will be in a week or two. That sound ok to you?”

“Yeah,” Frank nods, feels the tears heavy on his cheeks, feels the sob rise unbidden from his throat. It doesn’t sound ok, sounds about as far from ok as he can conceive, because he has no guarantee, no assurance that he’s not gonna be the 1-2% that doesn’t get to take a baby home, that doesn’t walk out of here with Laurel’s hand in his. Jonah promised he would leave with everyone he came with, and Frank thinks, knows, that had the sound of a promise, of a prophecy. He will not leave with either of them, either of the people he loves more than words, more than sense, more than his own life. He will be allowed to live because they won’t. He knows his punishment will be to live without them, to have Laurel, his child taken from him. He knows with perfect, utter certainty. Because of what he’s done he’s going to lose the only things that matter.

“Good, perfect,” Jonah says, clapping him on the back. “They’re already getting the OR prepped. Figured I’d come get you since I hadn’t scrubbed in yet, bring you up with me.”

“Scrubbed in?”

The other man nods, grins crookedly. “Yeah, gotta get you in some fancy pajamas,” he jokes, then falters for a moment. “You do wanna go in right. I mean, you don’t…”

“I want to,” Frank cuts in harshly. He doesn’t want to, not really, wants to be doing anything else than watching someone cut Laurel open, watch them pull his child from her body before its time, watch Laurel bleed out in front of him, god, he’d rather do anything else. But he has no other choice, can’t, won’t walk away from his family again. Whatever comes, he promised Laurel he’d face it, with her, and he’s going to keep that promise. Even if he’s the only one left after its all over. “I need to be there.”

“Alright,” Jonah nods, grin slipping back onto his face. “You ready to have a kid then?”

“No,” he breathes, slowly, softly, like he’s offering up some prayer to a god he no longer believes in. “I’m not.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like I said when this one started, this is the baby fic we're never gonna get, but maybe we ought...? There's a lot more things i could say about all the fun phsychological aspects of flaurel having a kid (esp frank) but we're obvs never gonna get that from pete, so hopefully i maybe gave a little bit of that in this fic even if we'll never get it IRL...

But he follows obediently after Jonah anyway, blind, numb, into a room where he pulls on stiff, paper thin scrubs, booties, a little shower cap, told to scrub in. Mutely, he follows Jonah’s movements, silent and robotic, acting on pure, animal instinct.

He gets ushered through, into the operating room, and he sees Laurel, at last, at last and for half a moment its like he can breathe again. He sees her first in profile, lying back against the gurney, staring unblinking at the ceiling, arms outstretched at her sides, so that he can let himself marvel at the sharp lines of her jaw, the sloping, downward cast to her mouth, tight with pain.

That’s what snaps him out of it, the pain he can see running like a current through every line of her body. He cannot stop, cannot pause to admire Laurel, cannot let himself think about how beautiful she is, even now, no, he simply has to keep running until he makes it to a place beyond fear and sadness and grief, because whatever he’s feeling, Frank knows that Laurel’s feeling it worse, more intensely because the baby is a part of her, still, for now because she’s known what’s happening, been there, present for all of it, not like Frank, left in the dark, in ignorance.

She turns at the sound of bodies coming through the door and for a long moment her eyes fix on his, cloudy and unseeing and filled with pain. This is not a version of Laurel he knows, not one he recognizes and a new, harsher layer of terror settles over his heart.

“Frank,” she whispers to him at long last, voice like a sigh, like plea or a prayer. “Frank.”

He wants to run, desperately, body itching, crawling with the desire to do so, wants nothing more than to turn around and never look back, not till this is over. But instead he steps forward, pace quickening as he goes, until he’s practically running towards her, takes Laurel’s hand in his, tightly, clinging to her flesh like he can anchor her to the world. Her hand is cold and slick with sweat, fingers shaking and though they tighten against his, the feeling is somehow distant, like she’s wearing mittens, can’t summon the strength to return the gesture.

“Hey,” he rasps, leaning over her bed, practically sinking to his knees before her, forehead pressed tightly against her cheek, the crook of her neck, fingers of his other hand smoothing back tendrils of sweat soaked hair from her brow, her cheeks. He feels her sharp inhale, in something like pain, grasps her hand even tighter in his, presses his lips against her forehead, her cheek like she’s a goddess and he’s a supplicant. “I’m here, I’m here.”

“You’re crying,” she tells him or asks him, he can’t tell, because she says it like she’s uncertain, pulling back and reaching a shaky hand out to draw her thumb against his cheekbone. Her voice is raw and cracked in pain and Frank wishes, hopelessly, for a universe in which he had never met her, never loved her so she could spare her this, spare her any ounce of pain. She’s sweating, but her skin is cold and clammy and she’s pale, pale like a ghost, like death itself, skin waxy and ashen and he remembers, suddenly, startlingly, the blood, the staccato heartbeats, remembers that things are even worse than he thinks.

He glances down the gurney, towards her stomach, towards their child, glances away just as quickly because he sees a flash of red, dark, bloody red, has to turn away because he can’t think about it, can’t think about Laurel bleeding out, about what severe bleeding means, about what it means for the baby. He can’t think about all the blood, staining the bed, staining the sheets, not stopping, god, not stopping.

All around him there’s humming bodies, like bees, checking equipment, checking Laurel, making adjustments to half a hundred tiny things who’s purpose he couldn’t begin to imagine. There’s lines running into her, running out of her, running up to an IV pole stationed by her head, running down her arm and into the back of her hand, lines attached to her chest, her collarbones, lines and tubes and wires and he feels his eyes cross, feels his breath grow tight because Laurel’s been swallowed by tubes and wires and sterile sheeting, subsumed by it, completely, been reduced to a body, broken and bloody and small and weak and that’s not her, that’s never been her.

He forces himself to focus on what he can, on the few inches of unmarried skin, on her face, her eyes, tries to remember that Laurel is strong and stubborn and fierce, that she’s so much stronger than him. He forces himself to nod at her words, tries to flash her a grin or something like it, tries to reassure her, ease the worry from her voice. He tries to be the man he needs to be, for her, for their child, to get them all through this day, get them all to tomorrow. He forces himself not to think about anything else, not to think about anything but what passes across Laurel’s face, about easing the dull pain in her eyes. “I was worried you were gonna start the party without me.”

She shakes her head, eyes pressing tightly closed. “You’re fashionably late, but I’ll forgive you. We’re still waiting on the guest of honor to show up after all.”

He nods, cracking a timid, tentative smile he knows she can't see, thumb slipping against hers, against the back of her hand. “Wouldn't dream of missing this. It hurt bad?”

He can see the pain shooting through every line of her body, setting every ounce of softness within her hard, sharp but she shakes her head anyway, trying to reassure him, even now, he thinks trying to shield him from the worst things. “It did. Now, now I’m just scared.”

He nods, turns, takes in more than just her face, wishes he could reach out, rest his hand atop her swollen belly, rest on the space where their child lies. He wants, despairingly, to feel an answering kick, some sign, some signal from his child but there’s nothing. But he can’t, he can’t, because there’s a pale blue plastic curtain bisecting Laurel’s body, shielding her lower half from view, shielding his child from view. He lets his hand fall to his side because he can’t let himself live in hope, can’t let himself wish for something he knows won’t be coming.

“He’s scared too,” Laurel murmurs softly before she inhales sharply again, fingers tightening around his with all the strength, he thinks, she can muster. Its not enough, not nearly enough he thinks, her grip weak and shaky, breathing going shallow.

“You ok?” he asks when her grip relaxes. “You need more anesthesia?”

She shakes her head mutely, eyes still squeezed tight. “I’m sorry,” she tells him, voice tiny and scared and all Frank wants to do is wrap her in his arms, never let her go until this is over. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep him safe.”

“No,” Frank whispers, throat tightening because that’s not it, not it at all. It wasn’t on her to protect their child, wasn’t her that failed. It was him, his fault, his sins and its coming back on Laurel, on their baby. Or it was just pure, blind luck, pure shitty chance. It doesn’t matter, he realizes that now, too late, realizes that it doesn’t matter why, it matters what he does about it, how he reacts to it. His hand runs through her hair again, pushing it away from her face so he can meet her eyes.

“No, Laurel, no. You kept him safe, you’re keeping him safe. Just need a little bit of help from the doctor’s right now.”

“I failed,” she sobs, her voice still shallow and small and his heart breaks all over again because it was never her, never Laurel. She did everything she could. “I failed him and I failed you. I was supposed to protect him, and I couldn’t and…”

“No,” he assures her again. “No, babe, you didn’t fail, you didn’t, I promise you didn’t. You kept him safe, you’re still keeping him safe. We’re here an’ the doctors have him now, ok and they’re gonna keep both of you safe for a little while.”

She nods slowly, eyes unfocused like she’s listening to something that only she can hear. “You called him ‘him,’” she says softly then, awed and breathless. “You called him ‘him.’”

“What?” Franks asks confused because he’s not sure what she’s talking about, not even really sure she’s talking to him at all and he wants to look around for someone, look for Matt or a nurse who can clue him in but Laurel’s eyes are fixed on his, blue and grey and churning with distant pain and he can’t look away, not if he tried.

“You never call the baby him,” she tells him, voice small, awed, her eyes holding his so that they’re joined together suddenly, joined, for one short, edged moment in the middle of the chaos that swirls around them, the chaos of the bustling doctors, the sounds of restless movement, the beeping of monitors and equipment, none of it matters, distant and meaningless. “You always call him the baby or the kid or T-Rex, but you never call him ‘him.’”

“But I did,” he breathes out, finishing the thought for her.

“You did.”

“I…” he trails off. He did. Because now, with his child so close, he can’t think of it as some strange distant creature, some mystery to be revealed later, some strange abstracted thing that doesn’t matter, like his child’s gender is a purely academic point. No, this is his child and its real and its his and trying to keep his distance, no, it no longer works. If Laurel believes this baby is a boy, well, then it’s a boy, its his son. “No point in hedging my bets, not now.”

“You hear that?” she asks, nodding.

“Hear what?” he asks, confused again.

“That,” she repeats. “That beeping. You hear it?”

He lets himself focus on something other than Laurel, lets his focus expand, trying to hear the beep she wants him to hear, hear something over the hundred other sounds filling the room, the shuffle of bodies and the hiss of equipment and other beeps and pings and clangs. But then he feels a rhythmic tapping against his palm, one of Laurel’s fingers pressing, steadily, against his skin, quick and fluttering. And then he hears it, and wonders how he’s missed it this long because once he hears it the beeps sound loud in his ears, loud as sirens, the only thing he can hear. “Yeah.”

“That’s him,” she breathes. “His heartbeat. You hear it?”

He nods, throat closing until he can barely breathe for it. The beeps come quick and fast and steady, perfectly, miraculously steady. His child, his son still strong and steady, still perfect. “Yeah. I can.”

“He’s gonna be ok Frank,” she tells him, a promise or a vow in her voice, filled with an assurance he’s not sure he can find it in himself to feel. “That’s how I know he’s gonna be ok. He’s a fighter.”

He nods, grips her hand in his, even harder. “Course he’s a fighter. He’s ours. He’s strong, he’s gonna fight and we’re gonna fight for him too.”

She nods, swallows deeply, holding his eyes. “But I didn’t want him to have to fight.”

“I know,” he whispers, lips brushing against her forehead. “I know. But he’s strong, he’ll show us all. Just keep listening to those damn beeps.”

“That’s him,” she says, eyes slipping closed as she listens to the steady beep of the fetal heart monitor. “Telling us he’s ok.”

He nods but Laurel doesn’t open her eyes, just grips his hand tightly in hers as something like pain courses through her, stiffens her whole body as she braces against it. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assures him once it passes.

“I know,” he says again. “I know you are. You’re strong too. He gets it from you.”

She smiles thinly, face still tight with pain, pale and sweat streaked. “I’m just, I’m tired already Frank. I dunno if I can do this.”

“You can, you can,” he tells her, pleads with her, because she’s got to stay with him, stay strong or they’re never gonna get through this horrible day, not all three of them and he can’t, he won’t lose either of them. God, god, if he could take away any of Laurel’s pain, even an ounce of it, all of it, anything, he’d do it in a heartbeat, let it double when it reached him, anything to save her from this, from the tight clench of her jaw, from the way he can tell her body tries to curl in on itself, even lying flat on her back on the gurney, the way her teeth sink into her lower lip to keep from crying out. But he can’t, he can’t. There's nothing he can do. “You gotta do it for him.”

She draws in a long shaky breath, tears slipping down her cheeks, clutches hard at his hand.

“Its gonna be hard, its always gonna be hard, but you can do it, I know you can,” he promises, grasps her hand in his, his other hand slipping against her cheek, brushing away the tears from her eyes. “And I’m not going anywhere , ok. I’m with you, with him.”

Laurel says nothing just holds on, hard to his hand, squeezes it tightly in her own as pain rips through her, setting her teeth on edge, setting them driving into her lower lip, harshly until he sees a bloom of blood against her skin. He glances away, reminded too much of the blood coating the bed, the sheets, slick and dark, reminded of Jonah’s words, severe, forces himself to ignore the blood, ignore everything but Laurel, the press of her hand in his, the sharp rasp of her breath, ignore all the things happening beyond the pale blue curtain shielding her lower half, shielding the rapid, practiced movements of the doctors.

“I know you can do it,” he tells her when Laurel’s pain eases, whispers it against her skin. “You’re the strongest person I know. You’ve been through so much and you can do this too. I know you can.”

“I can’t,” she confesses, cheeks wet with tears again, not sweat, not this time, her voice rough and slow now, like she’s drifting off, falling asleep. “It hurts Frank and I’m so tired. I just wanna stop hurting.”

“Hey,” he calls out, sharply. “Hey, babe, no, no. Can’t got to sleep, can’t do that ok.” Fuck, he thinks fuck, looks around desperately because he knows she’s hooked up to a blood bag, but that doesn’t mean she’s not losing it too fast, not drifting off somewhere, hazy and painless.

She looks up, eyes still clouded and unfocused, laced with pain. But she manages to react to his words, meets his eyes, draws in a long, shuddering breath. “I want to Frank, god, I don’t think I can do this.”

“I know, I know,” he murmurs against her hairline, lips ghosting over her damp skin. “I know its hard, but I know you can. I fucking know you and I know you can. Just think about what you’ll have at the end of it. We’re gonna have a baby, you just gotta be strong a little longer. You gotta be strong for him.”

“I’m gonna be strong for him,” she echoes, squaring her jaw, a hard, stubborn look creeping into her eyes, speaks like she’s making a promise, to him, to herself, to their child. “I couldn’t protect him like I should, but I’m gonna be strong for him now.”

“Nah,” he shakes his head, kisses her softly. “You protected him, when it counted, you kept him safe. You got him here so the doctor’s can do the rest. Couple more minutes and he’ll be ours.”

Laurel says nothing, just clings to his hand, sucks in a long shaky breath, wet and ragged, as her eyes slips closed, tight, bracing herself against whatever’s happening beyond that sterile curtain.

“You too, kid,” Frank tells her, whispers his words against her skin, hopes their child can hear him, hopes that voicing it aloud will make it so. “You hear me, you just gotta be strong a little longer and then we get to meet you, me an your ma. Just gotta get through a little more of this.”

He doesn’t promise things will be fine, doesn’t promise what he’s not sure the world will deliver on. He’s gonna be a father, starting today, really and truly be a father to a child, a son, he thinks, because as much as he resisted it these past five months, he knows Laurel’s right, knows, suddenly, clearly that the child she carries, his child, will prove to be a son, his son, living and breathing and real. If there’s any kindness in the world, any mercy, today he will be a father and he’s not going to start out lying to his son, not going to make promises he’s not sure the world, fate, god, something, someone will keep.

He doesn’t know what’s in store for his child, for Laurel, doesn’t know what impending disaster is already headed their way, barreling down on them like a freight train, but he knows he’s not going to start out by lying to his child, by disguising the truth or pretending the world is something its not. No, he’s not going to lie to his child, to the little new, fragile creature who doesn’t know anything of the world yet, who’s going to rely on him, on Laurel to learn all the things the world is, that life itself is, he’s not going to lie to him, not now, not ever. He’ll promise his child what he can, everything he can, but no more.

He hears the quick, clipped beat of the heart monitor, sounding quick and fluttering, two beats to every one of his, Frank thinks, still strong and steady, still sounding across the vast distance between them, the mere inches of blood and bones and skin that keeps their child from the world. He hopes his words reach his child, somehow, breach the vast distance between them, let him know he’s not alone, that he can be scared, be terrified, because god knows Frank is petrified, shaking down to his last atom, but wanting, needing his child to know he’s not alone, that he’s loved, no matter what happens that he has a father, a mother who would do anything for him, who love him to a place beyond words, who have given him strength he’s not going to be able to understand, not yet, but its there, a strength like iron, like diamonds lurking under his skin, a power just waiting to be unleashed.

“I love you, ok, kid, more than anything and if I could spare you this I would, I swear to you I would,” Frank murmurs against Laurel’s skin, words tumbling from his lips like prayers, like pleas, tears coming again now as Frank feels the slow slide of them against his cheeks, feels them burning a path against his skin. “But I know you’re strong, because your ma’s the strongest person I know and I’m a stubborn bastard, you’ll see that soon enough. And you’re the best of both of us, the best thing we’ve ever done. And I know it’ll be tough, kid, I know. But you’re tougher. I know you’re tougher, because you’re mine, because you’re hers. You hear me? You’re tougher than anything the world can throw at you.”

He wishes they were somewhere else, wishes he could feel an answering flutter against his skin, an answering pressure from the tiny creature lurking inside Laurel, could reach out and feel the familiar press of the baby reaching out at the sound of his words, the weight of his touch, because he’s grown accustomed to the movements of his child when he speaks, when he draws near. Instead, he hazards a glance down at the sterile sheeting, simply listens to the quick, clipped beats from the heart monitor, the high pulsing noises that signal his child is still strong, still there, in the world, with him, with Laurel, still theirs. As long as he has those beeps, those little pings, one after the other, unending, perfect and infinite, as long as he has that, he still has his son, the terrible things that would come for his son have not reached him. Not yet. As long as he has that, as long as the beeps still shatter the silence of the room his son is still safe, still his, still strong.

“Just gotta keep that up,” he urges the tiny creature that will be, that already is his child. He’s terrified, terrified the beats will slow, terrified he’s going to see more blood, terrified of what his sins, his horrible past will bring about. He wants to run, wants to run and never look back, never know what disaster looms over this operating room, but he won’t, he can’t. He loves them both too much, Laurel and his child, to run, to leave them now. He meant it when he told her, all those months ago that he wasn’t going anywhere, he thinks, and he’s done running. Whatever happens, whatever disaster or miracle or complete mundanity comes for his child, he’s going to stand and face it, gonna be the man he promised he’d be, be the father his child deserves. He’s going to turn and fight, just like he urged Laurel, urged his child to. He’s gonna stop running and hold his ground and fight, fight for them. Because he loves them, because they deserve it. “Just keep letting us hear that heartbeat of yours ok? We’re not going anywhere, kid, we’re here with you, we’ve got you, we’ve always got you. Just a little longer and you’ll be with us.”

And before Frank can even understand, comprehend it; quick fleeting seconds and a long, slow eternity later, when his son is born, a little early and a little unexpectedly and a little before his time, Frank wants to run again. The urge crashes against him with all the force of a tidal wave and Frank cannot resist it's pull, it's power. Only this time, instead of wanting to run away, he runs towards his child, toward the handful of doctors that crowd around his silent, still, stick-limbed child; runs toward him, heart in his throat, terror coursing through his blood, urged on by Laurel's exhausted, desperate pleas for him to tell her why their child isn't crying, isn’t moving; but conviction, love, settling heavy in his bones. He's certain, when he nears his unmoving child, not even his chest rising with breath, that whatever happens, whatever the outcome, he will love this child till the end of his days, will never regret his son, his love for him, will never regret even an ounce of this pain, this fear he feels.

He doesn't know if his son is breathing, will ever breathe, but he knows he can't leave him, can't leave him, can't pull himself away from this little thing that is part him and part Laurel and fully, wholly his own creature, already his own perfect amazing person, even if he never really even becomes a person, even if this is all his son will ever be. He pushes his way through the doctors, pushes his way close to where his son lies. And he watches, terrified, ice settling in his fingertips, settling deep in his chest, feels the sob rising in his throat and the tears falling hot against his cheeks.

It would be easy to run, run away and ignore this, ignore whatever disaster is hurtling towards him, has already settled on his son's tiny shoulders; to pretend he has no son, pretend he has no pain. But he doesn't, he can't, because whatever happens, whatever happens, he's going to face it, head on. He's going to feel whatever he needs to, whatever pain or grief or terror lets him continue to feel this surging overwhelming love and protectiveness and heart stopping awe.

And when his son lets out a tiny, weak little cry, and when his near-translucently pale arms begin to flail, angry and confused and demanding at the doctor’s quick, assured movements, urging breath into his lungs, urging life into his body, it's the most beautiful sound Frank's ever heard in his life, the most beautiful sight he thinks he'll ever witness and he doesn't move to brush the tears from his cheeks, doesn't do a thing to disguise the choking sob that's ripped out of his throat.

And when they finally let him hold his tiny, dark haired son in his arms minutes or hours or days later, when he settles beside Laurel on the cramped hospital bed, body curling tight against hers, their child between them, still flailing his arms like he's conducting a damn symphony and his eyes, big and dark and blue and filled with a preternatural watchfulness that's all Laurel, all perfectly, terrifyingly, heart-stoppingly Laurel, Frank can't think of any universe in which he could regret this, regret Laurel, their son, regret any decision that has lead him to this point, can't think of any universe in which he would choose to be apart from them, now or ever.

And when the two of them, Laurel and his tiny, dark haired, still-nameless son have fallen asleep, minutes or hours or days later, twin expressions of consternation of their faces, beautiful and astonishing and more perfect than he ever could have imagined, their brows crinkled and mouths pulled tight into frowns, and his tiny son’s small, fragile hand clasping one of Frank’s fingers, and Laurel’s body pressed close against his chest, feeling the slow steadiness of her heart, beating in time with his own, feeling the last of her tears, of relief, of exhaustion, of joy drying against his skin, Frank thinks that there have been countless unending things he's done wrong in his life, will probably continue to do, countless unending things he will never be certain of, but for the first time in his life, everything is perfectly, hopelessly, disarmingly right and there is no room, anywhere, for fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the Mountain Goats song "Deuteronomy 2:10," a song about the fear of dying childless.


End file.
